


They May Pass

by magicites



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Final Fantasy X, Corrupt Religious Organizations, Fantastic Racism, Living in a society that glorifies teens going on suicide missions is great!, M/M, Minor Elrena/Strelitzia, Minor Violence, Past Vanitas/Ephemer, the foretellers are aeons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-13 19:43:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20588042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicites/pseuds/magicites
Summary: People die, and summoners dance. Summoners die, and people dance. That’s the way it goes in Spira.The way it doesn’t go in Spira: an Al Bhed summoner and his atheist guardian dedicating themselves to the ultimate goal of a religion that has forsaken them both.Vanitas should have known from the first moment he saw Ven, that this summoner would be the end of him.





	They May Pass

**Author's Note:**

> i love ffx's worldbuilding and have wanted to write a crossover fic for it for literal years so heres this
> 
> reminder to read the tags. read em yet? ok carry on

People die, and summoners dance. 

That’s the way it goes in Spira. It’s a broken record, the needle scratching across the whole damn continent in that same grating song.

Bevelle is the worst about it. The temple pumps summoners out at a rate that would make spring rabbits ashamed of themselves. They crawl all over the damn city, what with their fancy staffs and goofy outfits and their constant _ dancing. _ If they weren’t born here, then they flock here, all vying to be taken on as an apprentice by either the Maester that lives here or, if they dare to dream so big that their egos threaten to collapse under the weight of their stupidity, the Grand Maester himself. If not, then they settle for following the priests around like dogs begging for spiritual scraps.

Then the sendings. Oh Yevon, the _ sendings. _ Damn things happen all the time. Of course the biggest city in Spira would have a lot of deaths, but summoners descend on every grieving household with rabid abandon. All too eager to practice their dances on something real. 

Sure, it’s a necessary evil. The summoners annoy Vanitas to no end, but maybe they help ward Sin off. There are so many of them that the combined holiness of their presence prevents Sin from blowing this place to bits. This place has a history too complicated to be restructured once a decade like the majority of Spira. That relative safety, combined with the high proportion of shitheads that tend to flock in cities, translates to lots of jobs for sellswords to snap up.

Sometimes you don’t want a priest to enact righteous judgement on a criminal. Sometimes all you want is some punk with a sword to come in and lop off the head of the bastard who killed your husband. 

That’s where Vanitas comes in.

* * *

They meet on a summer afternoon. 

Vanitas’s job is simple. Some poor sucker’s husband owed some assholes too much money for him to ever pay off. Said assholes figured that his life would be a good enough payment instead.

Furious and heartbroken, the widow offered Vanitas a trade: the head of the asshole who performed the hit for a hefty sack of Gil. Enough to keep him off a job and out of Bevelle for a few months, if not longer.

She and her late husband live in a tiny shack, tucked in the northeastern part of the city. The temple’s shadow casts it in a gloomy pallor every single afternoon. The inside of the place isn’t any better, holding nothing but broken furniture and movie spheres polished until they glitter with fresh grief.

Vanitas’s magic skills are shit compared to ninety percent of the people in this city, but he knows enough to enchant the bag he keeps the asshole’s head in. It isn’t anything special, just a spell designed to keep it from leaking blood all over the place. Gross, but a worthy investment for someone with a job like his. 

Vanitas knocks on the door twice and kicks it once before letting himself in - a code the woman taught him so she’d know not to grab a kitchen knife and fillet him. He freezes in the doorway as two voices float towards him. There’s the woman’s, tumbling out her throat like boulders, but it's coupled with an unfamiliar one. There’s something slightly off about the way the second voice speaks. Their voice follows a different cadence, one just a few beats off from what he’s accustomed to. He can’t quite put his finger on where it's from.

Vanitas waits patiently, the hand that isn’t holding the woman’s trophy wrapped around the hilt of his sword. When he detects no hostility from this stranger, he shrugs and continues forward. He has a payment to collect, after all. 

The woman claims not to be a fighting type, but she’s larger than Vanitas could ever hope to be. She has a proud nose, heavyset eyes that can see into souls, and an air about her that doesn’t give a fuck about what anyone thinks of her. An odd type to live in the shadow of the church, but Vanitas isn’t one to talk. He’s an odd type to walk these streets too. He’d have a field day in the Via Purifico if the priests ever knew what he said about their religion once he’s had enough to drink.

The stranger she talks to is a young man, the kind of young where Vanitas isn’t entirely sure if _ man _ is a better description than _ boy. _ All Vanitas can see is a head of fluffy blonde hair and long robes that he instantly recognizes as summoner’s garb regardless of the long staff in his hand. His voice is light and friendly, peppered with gratitude as he speaks.

“I’m honored you would let me Send your husband. Not many people would let me in past the door.”

Vanitas knows he must be making a face at those words. Summoners may outnumber roaches in this city, but every place in Spira respects a summoner. They’re nothing but a bunch of martyrs-in-training. For throwing their lives away the way they all do, the least they deserve is some respect.

“A summoner’s a summoner, in my book. As long as you can get him to the Farplane, I don’t care who you are.”

A chuckle. “I can get him there. Trust me.”

“You ever done a Sending before?”

“This is my first.”

Vanitas takes the opportunity to make himself known. Clearing his throat, he raps his knuckles against the closest wall. “Ran? I have what you wanted me to get.” Best to keep it vague. This summoner could be a particularly devout type. They don’t take too well to sellswords. 

Two heads turn to look at him. 

Vanitas’s breath dies in his chest.

The summoner’s pupils, not the solid circle of a typical Spiran, but the distinctive swirl of an Al Bhed, betray his identity. 

Against his better instincts, Vanitas barks out a harsh laugh. “An Al Bhed summoner? Now I’ve seen it all.”

The summoner frowns. “And who are you?” he asks. Now that his identity is cleared up, Vanitas can finally place the accent. He’s been to Home several times, knows enough Al Bhed to order food, find the bathroom, and call someone a fuckface, but he’s not used to hearing such a slight accent. This guy must not have been to Home in a long time. 

“A delivery boy,” Vanitas answers, tilting his head towards Ran. She nods in affirmation before disappearing into another small room. She comes back a moment later with a fat bag of Gil in her hands. The clinking metal sounds like the only salvation Vanitas would ever need.

“You need a whole body for a Sending, right?” Ran asks the summoner.

“Not the whole body. Just wherever the heart is. You have the heart, and you have the soul. That’s where the pyreflies coalesce.” 

Spoken like a true summoner. At least the guy knows his stuff. Not that Vanitas can confirm one way or another. He sounds confident is all.

Ran nods. She takes the bag from Vanitas and disappears back into that small room. There’s a grunt and a distinctive sound of wood slamming into the floor before Ran returns, this time dragging a large casket along the ground.

This doesn’t happen anywhere else. Sendings inside a house are only common here, where there are enough summoners that one can come perform a Sending before the body rots enough to permanently stink up the place. There are even businesses in the city that rent out temporary caskets, enchanted front and back with embalming magic, for this same purpose.

“You’re welcome to stay, if you’d like,” Ran says, casting a pointed glance at Vanitas. “I bet he would’a liked you.” Then to the summoner: “Is that okay with you? Doesn’t interrupt the mojo?”

The summoner shakes his head. “Not at all.”

Vanitas snorts. He’s seen huge Sendings. He happened to be passing through Djose last time Sin attacked the place. Wiped out the shaky settlements that had gathered, hoping to seek shelter and protection from that particularly harsh winter due to the kindness from the temple. 

_ (The summoner who performed the Sending was a slight thing. Couldn’t have been any older than Vanitas was at the time - seventeen, if that. He had bright eyes and a mop of silvery hair. Wore a red scarf that looked completely out of place with his robes. His guardian had honey-colored eyes that watched her summoner’s every move, entranced by the complicated dance he wove through floating over the Djose River. _

_ Vanitas kissed that summoner after his dance was done, the knowledge brimming in the back of his head that, on a summoner’s path, a second meeting was a fluke, and a third impossible. It was fine. That boy never meant to stay, either. Their fling worked out for both of them. _

_ Vanitas hasn’t seen him since then. He wonders what part of Spira did him in, him and that pretty guardian of his.) _

The dance this summoner does is perfect. Not a step is out of alignment as he swirls and dips in the middle of this lonely room. Pyreflies swirl around his staff, flitting off the massive teeth at the end that lay at a color stuck somewhere between gray and green. 

He holds the staff backwards, Vanitas realizes. The teeth should swing with the arc of his arm as he spins in circles, but they don’t. They stick out the opposite way.

He can’t help but grin. What an odd summoner.

When the dance ends, tears stream down Ran’s face. She’s too proud a woman to sob, but she’s also too proud to shield her full sorrow from someone whose life is doomed to hold nothing but it. She claps his shoulder. “Thank you,” she whispers, her voice hoarse.

The summoner smiles back, nothing but Kilika sunshine. “He’ll be at rest now.” With that, he takes his leave. As he passes by Vanitas, a strange urge overwhelms him. It causes his hand to shoot out and grab the summoner’s arm. 

The summoner stops. Confused, wary, hostility creeping down his spine until his entire body is one taut line. Vanitas lets go, shame burning somewhere in the back of his mind. People here don’t take to the Al Bhed very kindly. Vanitas is just as much of a heretic to any self-respecting Yevonite. The difference is that someone can’t look at his eyes and figure that out.

_ (He’s certain that bright-eyed summoner’s guardian knew as much. She watched Vanitas constantly. Still, she didn’t denounce him. Maybe she let him stay to provide a sort of gift to the friend she knew was slated for death no matter what she did.) _

“...Yes?” the summoner asks.

“What’s your name?” Vanitas asks. 

“What’s it matter to you?” he shoots back.

“I’ve been all over Spira multiple times, seen a dozen different summoners come and go, and never once did I think I’d ever see an _ Al Bhed _ summoner. At least let me put a name to the face.”

The summoner hesitates. He searches Vanitas for any signs that this might be a trick. The joke’s on him. It’s nothing but simple curiosity.

“...Ventus. But everyone calls me Ven.”

“Ven, huh?” The name doesn’t ring a bell. “I thought I would have heard about you sooner. How long have you been in the field?”

Ven’s face burns red - whether from shame or anger, Vanitas can’t tell. “Not long,” he eventually settles on. It’s a clear lie, but Vanitas no reason to call him out on it.

Instead, Vanitas laughs. “I see. How many aeons do you have?”

“I don’t need to tell you anything,” Ven seethes. Vanitas has met some rude summoners, but this one is the rudest he’s seen. Not that he can blame him, exactly. He can’t imagine the kind of shit this poor idiot has to deal with on a daily basis. _ Especially _ in a place like Bevelle.

“You don’t,” Vanitas admits. “Who knows, Ven. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

Ven scowls and leaves without another word. 

* * *

Besaid village is nice. Probably the tiniest village in all of Spira, but that’s part of its charm. The only people who ever come here are summoners looking to gain its aeon, and people like Vanitas, looking for a place to disappear into for a few months.

The nicest thing about it is that Sin rarely comes here either. Hasn’t been an attack in... what, fifty years? According to the village matriarch, at least. Vanitas isn’t a local, but he’s come here enough times that the people no longer stare at him in befuddlement when he rolls in with a shipment of textiles and weapons from Bevelle.

He’s lounging by a waterfall just strong enough to mist his sun-heated skin when he sees a flash of blonde hair and a stupid-looking staff. Instantly Vanitas is on his feet, all thoughts of relaxing forgotten at the sight of the Al Bhed summoner.

He’s been here enough times to hear the temple gossip. Valefor is the easiest aeon to obtain. He was once a young boy who grew up in the village, the legends the priests peddle always say. A pragmatic, serious kid, far beyond his years. He’s willing to offer his help to any summoner able to prove themselves to him. Vanitas often wonders how much of that is pure bullshit. 

“Hey!” Vanitas calls out. Ven freezes in place, staff gripped in his hand like a sword. Vanitas snorts at the sight. Like that piece of wood could stand against his own weapon. “Look who it is,” Vanitas continues, slinking towards him. He makes no move to fight the grin that dominates his face. 

_ (The silver-haired summoner once told Vanitas he looks like a fiend when he makes that face. Vanitas had laughed and asked what kind of dance the summoner would give to Send him. _

_ Ephemer had smiled, in that strange ethereal way of his, like his mind was half here and half on the Farplane, and told Vanitas that when his time comes, he’ll get a dance meant for him and him only. _

_ That was the last time they spoke.) _

“It’s you,” Ven says, blinking at him in wonder. Wariness is quick to follow as he grips his staff even tighter, bringing it in front of his body like a shield. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m on vacation,” Vanitas says, gesturing back to the half-empty coconut shell he was enjoying a particularly nice cocktail out of. “What are _ you _ doing here? The temple’s on the other side of the island, you know.”

Ven scowls. “I know that!”

“Then why are you here? I thought summoners get fancy temple perks.” He’s seen it before. Priests trip over themselves trying to provide for summoners. Fancy rooms in the temple for themselves and their guardians, extravagant meals, everything they could ask to prepare them for the hours they’ll spend bruising their knees while praying on the cold ground. 

Something dark and ugly flashes over Ven’s face. Vanitas kind of likes it. It’s the kind of thing he’d never expect to see on a perfect, pristine summoner. Leave it to this Al Bhed to break every expectation he’s ever had. “Most summoners do. Not me.”

“It’s the swirly eyes, isn’t it.”

“What else could it be?” 

“And still you made it all the way out here,” Vanitas says, stepping closer. Ven doesn’t grip his staff any tighter. That’s nice. He’s letting his guard down, probably because Vanitas hasn’t been any more of a jerk to him than he would be to anyone else. “They’ll let you in though, won’t they?”

“They better,” Ven mutters. “I already have an aeon.”

Vanitas whistles. A little uncommon, but not entirely unheard of. He’s heard of summoners picking up Kilika’s aeon before getting Besaid’s. “You already have Ifrit? Good job.”

Ven flashes a grin. Now _ that_, that mischief sparkling in his swirling green eyes, is a very good look. Vanitas wouldn’t mind seeing it more. “Not quite,” he says, taking several deliberate steps back. He swings his staff in a graceful arc, the backwards teeth cutting through the air with ease. He steps in a careful circle, bending low and arcing up high in a silent dance. Magic pulses in the air around him, pyreflies in every color jumping and dancing all around him. He raises his staff, directing the lights up towards the sky. They race in patterns so complex that Vanitas can’t follow them all. Ven takes another step back, still grinning with a fierce pride. 

A distant figure plunges them both into shadow.

Before Vanitas’s eyes, a large dragon plummets into the space between them. A massive onyx tail sweeps along the ground. The dragon flexes its wings, buffering Vanitas with a harsh gust of air. That’s followed by a snort of hot air, smoke trailing from its nostrils and into the blue sky above. Even from this far away, the residual heat brushes Vanitas’s skin.

He’s all too aware that this beast could crush him in an instant. His sword, the same thing that can behead bandits and skewer fiends with ease, is nothing more than a toothpick. And this massive monster, this unholy representation of nature, is under Ven’s every command.

Vanitas has never thought much of summoners. He’s starting to reconsider that.

“Have you met Bahamut before? She’s Bevelle’s aeon. She’s pretty tough, so most summoners get her last,” Ven explains cheerfully. Bahamut snorts in what must be confirmation. 

Vanitas sees the move for what it is: Al Bhed or not, no one can deny his legitimacy as a summoner if his first aeon is the same one that summoners fantasize about getting. Vanitas has seen countless wannabe summoners in Bevelle, the ones who Send and Send and never actually take that first step of their pilgrimage. He’s seen the robes and the flair and how they’re just childish accessories to cover a false bravado.

There’s nothing false about Ven. 

Vanitas cracks a grin. “I’ve seen too many summoners to count, but you’re the most interesting one I’ve seen. You might make it all the way through, Ven.” That’s kind of a shame, if anything. At least summoners who crawl home with half the aeons they need and their tail tucked between their legs live to see tomorrow. The only kind of summoner more doomed to die than a pathetic one is a strong one.

And this summoner in front of him, one aeon or not, may be the strongest one Vanitas has ever seen.

Ven perks up at the praise. “That’s the goal!” he chirps, like he hasn’t dedicated his life to a suicide mission. He settles down a little, something pensive settling over his face. Almost like he just swallowed a bug. “I just realized something…”

“And that is?”

“You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

Vanitas isn’t one to give his name out. Easier to stay anonymous in a job like his. Some people know him as the golden blade. Partially for the literal golden eyes and partially because he’s that damn good at taking out a target. Other acceptable alternatives include _ that damn sellsword_, _ you fucking bastard, _ and _ I’ll make sure I kill you. _

_ (His name sounded like honey whenever it fell from Ephemer’s lips. Felt like hope when it fell from Skuld’s. _

_ Since coming here, he heard a rumor that she died with a fiend’s claw wrapped around her heart, desperate to protect the boy she had dedicated her life to. He wonders if Ephemer managed to Send her before the fiend got him, too. _

_ They were from Besaid, after all, and temple priests like to gab.) _

He gives Ven the truth. 

“Vanitas.”

“Vanitas,” Ven says, rolling his name around in his mouth. He looks up to Bahamut like she’s not a force of destruction, but a close friend. “Sounds nice, don’t you think?”

The dragon snorts in what Vanitas thinks must be approval.

* * *

Ven grew up on the rule that completing a temple’s Cloister of Trials without at least one guardian was impossible. Summoners were meant to have guardians. No one can complete a pilgrimage alone.

_ (When Terra and Aqua returned to Bevelle, they had changed so much. Terra sported a large scar over his eye he didn’t have when he left. Aqua was as pristine as ever, still moved like a river given flesh, but her steps seemed heavier than Ven remembered. Like the aeons she stored within her body burdened her with their own gravity as well. _

_ He tried to follow them into Bevelle’s Cloister. It was the hardest temple, with the most difficult to please aeon and the most complex Cloister of Trials to complete. Every last acolyte in Bevelle knew that. Ven begged and pleaded to help them, even if half of his reasoning was because they needed the help and half was a desperate attempt to spend more time with them before Aqua left for good. _

_ The last time he ever saw her, Aqua had ruffled his hair and made him promise to stay home. If Maester Eraqus hadn’t found him and kept Ven at his side all throughout that awful night, he wouldn’t have listened. _

_ He spent so many hours praying to High Summoner Aqua’s statue before he left for his own pilgrimage. Hoping that she could hear him from the depths of the Farplane. _

_ Terra would have laughed if he knew how Ven officially kicked it off: by sneaking through his bedroom window, barefoot as to not make a sound, and slipping through the same temple he was never allowed in during the dead of night when he knew the priest who was the worst at his scouting job was on watch.) _

Besaid’s Cloister of Trials is nothing compared to the maze he fought through in Bevelle. Praying to Bahamut was no easier. He lost track of the hours it took until Bahamut accepted his prayer and nestled herself deep in his ribcage. He doesn’t know if aeons are supposed to speak to summoners the way she does, but her gentle voice fills his head with commentary as he braves these puzzles alone. 

_ These tests are so interesting to me. I would have imagined that your prayers would be enough, _ she says. If he closes his eyes, he can picture her fayth at his side. She’s a ghostly thing, pyreflies swirling around her pearlescent dress. Her smile is gentle, but her eyes are forever obscured by the pink hood hanging over her face. He wonders what would happen if he lifted up her hood. Would there even be eyes left to look at him, ones shining with the bright light of humanity?

Or does nothing but a blank face remain - another sacrifice in the name of Yevon? 

Ven looks at the puzzle before him. A closed door blocks his way into the next chamber, though there’s an obvious indent in the center that begs for a sphere to fill it. He looks around, searching for any clues as to his next action.

Bahamut points to a small crawlspace. _ Is that what you’re looking for? _ she asks.

“Think so!” Ven says, stepping over a small moat to get closer to the crawlspace. This cloister is full of water, as if the ocean itself leaked into the temple and no one ever bothered to dry it out. He wonders if the aeon appreciates it, or if the aeon even knows about it. 

_ (Aqua had told him a little bit about Valefor. She hadn’t expected his aeon form to look the way it does. She expected a cat, not a bird. _

_ “The ways of Yevon are mysterious, Ven. We may never understand them,” she said, Terra nodding at her side. Maester Eraqus would have been so proud to hear her. _

_ He cried so hard the day they rose her statue inside Bevelle. Ven did, too.) _

The crawlspace isn’t deep, but it’s deep enough that Ven has to physically crawl inside to grab the glowing sphere tucked away at the end. He grimaces at the moisture that creeps up his robes - the end must have fallen into some water. Hopefully after he gets Valefor, he can convince the temple priests to let him shower. If he’s really lucky, they’ll even give him a bed to sleep in for the night. 

It doesn’t have to be a private room. He can share a room with the orphans or the dying. A bed is a bed. 

_ (“You would have laughed, Ven. Everyone treats Aqua like a princess out there,” Terra had told him over a stew full of albatross, two nights before Ven never saw him again. _

_ “Summoners have a much more daunting task to face,” Maester Eraqus had reminded his boys. “That’s why we have acolytes like Ven. To scrub floors, so summoners and their guardians don’t have to.” _

_ “Thanks a lot, Terra!” Ven had said, the words nearly choked by his laughter. _

_ Maester Eraqus hasn’t made albatross stew since that night.) _

_ You did it! _ Bahamut cheers, waiting for Ven by the door. He slides the sphere in with ease, grinning as ancient magic works the door open. He walks into the next chamber, though he lingers at the entrance, trying to figure out what obstacle stands in his way now.

“Are aeons supposed to be this helpful? Aqua never talked about any aeon this way,” Ven says. 

_ I’ve seen many summoners in my time. You’re the first in many centuries to come to me without a guardian. Plus… _ Bahamut falters, her ghostly voice echoing in the caverns of Ven’s mind. _ I’ve never seen anyone who looks like you before. You’re an interesting one. _

Ven’s laugh isn’t kind. “You saw how they almost didn’t let me in here. They hate my people.”

Still, the job has to be done. Aqua’s Calm is long over now. Maester Eraqus forbade Ven from leaving on this pilgrimage, but leave he did. Another summoner out on the field is another chance to defeat Sin. He doesn’t need a guardian. He’ll do it on his own. 

Everyone knows that successful summoners are successful sacrifices. No one knows why the guardians never return either. If Maester Eraqus knows, he’s certainly good at hiding it. 

Ven doesn’t want there to be two sacrifices this time around. He doesn’t want anyone else to mourn someone who will only be remembered by the loved ones left behind, the way he did for Terra. 

Plus, if an Al Bhed summoner can defeat Sin, maybe things will change for his people. Maybe then, Yevonites across all of Spira will see what Maester Eraqus saw in Ven the day he saved his life. That Yevon’s teachings are for all people, regardless of where they come from.

_ I don’t understand why, _ Bahamut muses. _ You and I would have been excellent friends in my time. _

Ven chuckles, his eyes settling on a gear that must be turned to open the door. Slowly, he picks his way over platforms separated by murky moats. The metal gleams in his eyes. “We aren’t friends now?”

_ I suppose we are. _ She falters again. _ Ven… if we are truly friends, then can I tell you a secret? _

“Of course.”

_ When we became fayth, we sacrificed our names to Yevon. The names summoners call us now are not the names we were born with. I believe most of the fayth have forgotten their old names, but not I. _

“What’s yours?”

_ Ava. _

“Ava… can I call you that?”

Her smile is slight, but so pretty. They would have been such good friends in another life. _ I would love that. _

_ (She was drawn to his love and his grief, poured out over her stone in the heart of Bevelle’s temple. The entire city is built upon her statue, its strength drawn from her sacrifice. The prayer he offered her was a child’s prayer, the words stumbled over and shattered as they spilled from his lips. _

_ “Help me, so no one else has to feel this way ever again,” he had begged. He spent hours crouched over the glass that sealed her in a gaze forever locked on the Farplane, begging that same sentence over and over again. She rarely accepts pleas, least of all from someone whose body was still light with only the weight of one soul to carry, but she accepted his. _

_ She had friends once, too. Ones that she sacrificed herself for, so no one else would have to suffer again. Those names have been lost to time, but her heart remembers. _

_ The heart always remembers.) _

Besaid’s Chamber of the Fayth is small. Ava curls back around his heart, settling into the groove of his soul she’s claimed for herself. He draws comfort from her presence as he kneels in front of the dome of glass that has sealed Valefor since history itself began to be recorded.

Valefor’s fayth is young. Younger than Ven, though not as young as Ava. Still, the sight brings forth both a sharp grief at such a young life extinguished so early for such a great purpose, and a fierce admiration for the determination it must have taken to see such a holy task through.

Ven’s prayer to Valefor is simple, though the strain on his body leaves him trembling from head to toe. His muscles ache from exhaustion, threatening to betray all the work its taken to get this far.

He refuses to give in.

“Help me prove them all wrong,” Ven whispers, his head bowed in prayer. His neck aches from staying in an uncomfortable position for so long.

The minutes melt to hours, but Ven’s persistence wins out. Valefor grants him his power, nestled deep in the sinews of his arms and brimming in every fingertip. 

Valefor takes up nearly the entire space in the main mouth of the temple, the one where sinners and saints alike are welcome to intermingle under Yevon’s divine eyes. The priests all gasp in a uniform shock at the sight.

He nearly summons Bahamut too, letting Ava roar to life and scare the village awake, but they relent just as her pyreflies begin to gather in the sky above.

The room isn’t great, but it is his. A victory enough.

* * *

Three months. 

That’s how long Vanitas can afford to lounge around Besaid without getting his hands bloodied. He’s done the calculations over a dozen times, both in his head and scattered across scraps of paper stolen when the innkeeper wasn’t looking. He has plenty of time to get as trashed as he wants, watch as many shitty Blitzball practices as he wants, and hike through as many small island paths as he wants before having to pack up and kill another idiot for money. 

A week after Ven arrives, he prepares to leave. Vanitas overhears him begging for a ticket onto a trade boat headed for Kilika. The fact that a summoner of all people has to beg is disgusting. These assholes normally trip over themselves for the chance to escort a summoner anywhere on their pilgrimage. There’s a captain who frequents Besaid and Kilika who _ still _ boasts about helping the last High Summoner get to Kilika, four years after the last Calm ended. It’s a pain in the ass to hear about, but his hull doesn’t smell too much like fish, so the trade-off is bearable.

Something else occurs to him, something that he’s seen played out over and over since the moment he left Luca behind with a sword on his hip and an itch for gold and freedom. 

On a summoner’s path, a second meeting is a fluke. A third is impossible.

_ (They had two different paths to take out of Djose. Ephemer’s sights were set on Macalania temple, while Vanitas had seen enough blitzball practices across all of Spira to have a good bet on the winning team this year. As much as he hated Luca, it was where the money was. _

_ Skuld had held him tight, laughing at Vanitas’s attempts to squirm out of her grasp. Ephemer had kissed him more sweetly than he ever had in their short time together. _

_ “I’ll see you on the other side,” Ephemer had said. It wasn’t the last thing he ever said to Vanitas, but the words carried a finality that Vanitas found himself hating. All it convinced Vanitas of was how there was no side of Spira that would ever allow them to cross paths again.) _

Kilika is bigger than Besaid, but the blitzball team is better and the coconuts are just as fresh.

Vanitas marches up to the boat’s captain. “Is there a problem here?” he asks, shoving his way into the captain’s line of sight.

They know each other. Not well, but they do. A bunch of punks from Luca got their hands on too many drugs and made their way down to Besaid to wreak havoc. The temple priests called them fiends wearing stolen skin. Vanitas called them strung-out idiots. 

They almost looted this captain’s house. Killed his dog and toppled over a memorial to the man’s parents in their efforts to do whatever the fuck they wanted to do in some random hut. They would have nearly slit his kid’s throat if Vanitas didn’t slit theirs first.

“I heard rumors that the golden blade was back. I don’t got a job for you, blade,” the captain says. Vanitas takes a deliberate step in front of Ven, though he doesn’t look back at the summoner. He does hear Ven’s stifled giggle at the nickname. He probably thinks it's stupid, which, Vanitas guesses, is fair. Not his fault his clients are stupid.

“I’m not looking for a job, captain. I’m looking to see what the problem is.”

“I’m trying to get to Kilika and this guy won’t let me on his boat,” Ven says. He pushes past Vanitas to beg with the man once more. “C’mon, you gotta let me on! I’m a real summoner. I have _ two _ aeons.”

The captain snorts. “Yeah, I’ve seen your little show. Tell me kid, how many Maesters know that a heretic machina-lover is running around Spira pretending to be a summoner? You really think Yevon won’t smite you where you stand?”

Vanitas feels some part of him twitch. His hand, he quickly identifies. And it’s twitching towards his sword, so he can jam it between this bastard’s ribs and not have to hear any more hot air whistle out his putrid lungs. 

Ven shoves past Vanitas, their shoulders colliding hard enough for the nerves within to smart. There’s fire and fury in Ven’s swirling eyes. “Maester Eraqus _ raised me. _ And he raised me to know that Yevon’s teachings are true, and that reaching true atonement involves _ not _ harming those who don’t wish to do you harm.” Oh Yevon, he sounds like a religious textbook. But an Al Bhed being raised as a Maester’s son? How the fuck did they manage to cover that one up? He always knew the church was shady, but this is something else. 

“A heretic _ and _ a liar at that!” The captain guffaws right in Ven’s face. “I never heard of any Maester taking in an Al Bhed. You’re lucky I don’t pay the blade to gut you where you stand for sayin’ something like that.”

Furious, Ven takes a step back. Shoves his hand deep into the pocket of his flowing green robes and pulls out a small movie sphere. He shakes it until a recording of Maester Eraqus himself, the Maester of Military Affairs and second in command only to the Grand Maester, comes to life and smiles out at them.

“You’ll make High Summoner Aqua so proud, Ven,” his recording says. Now _ that _ much is common knowledge - that the most recent High Summoner is the Maester’s adopted daughter. No one was surprised when her Calm came forth. Sure, it may have only lasted a year, but a Calm is a Calm. 

But for Ven to be her brother? That’s something else.

The captain has nothing to say to that. 

Vanitas isn’t sure he does, either. The words want to stick in his throat, but as Ven slowly returns the sphere to his robes, he finds the strength to speak. “Looks like you can make room on your boat for the Maester’s kid. Unless you want the Maester to hear about it, that is. I’ve seen the Crusaders he’s brought up these past few years in action. They’re intense. Wouldn’t wanna get on their boss’s bad side if I were you.”

All color drains from the captain’s face. Ven, with a face set in pure steel, glares at the captain. Daring him to speak again. Vanitas feels like he’s been shocked by lightning magic at the sight.

“Make it room for two,” Vanitas says before he can stop himself. Ven starts, the steel melting away to sheer confusion as he gapes at Vanitas. “You owe me, remember?” Vanitas continues. “Your hut would be dust if not for me.”

They get a room to share on the boat. It’s a small one, with two bunks tucked against the wall and a penchant for swaying violently during any and every wave, but they don’t have to share it with buckets of Besaidian fish and that’s what matters. 

That night, Vanitas is nearly asleep on the top bunk when a voice cuts through the darkness.

“Vanitas?”

“What.”

“Why did you help me?”

Vanitas groans under his breath and rolls to his side, his sleep disrupted by the curiosity beamed up at him from the bunk below. He goes to answer, but shuts his mouth. Something about Ven makes him not want to lie, and there isn’t an easy answer that comes to mind that feels close enough to truth to tell. 

“Well?” Ven asks, his patience growing thin in the silence that stretches between them. 

Vanitas takes a deep breath. He heaves out a sigh, one that he knows must grate Ven’s nerves down to nothing. That’s fine.

“You’re interesting,” Vanitas answers. It’s true enough. There’s more that could go into what he means by that. Interesting that he’s the Maester’s hidden kid, and for all the time Vanitas spent in Bevelle’s underbelly he never once had any idea that a fucking Maester, the one who is the Minister of Military Affairs even, raised an Al Bhed orphan (what else could he be, after all?) as his own son. Interesting that he skipped every path Vanitas has ever seen a summoner take and shows up to the easiest temple with the hardest aeon to get propelling him forward. 

Interesting in that maybe Vanitas has a little bit of a thing for summoners, for their drive and unflinching devotion that he’s never had towards a single fucking thing in his life, and for the romantic tragedy of the narrative they step into the moment they fall to their knees and pray to the fayth. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He’s interesting in another way, too, and that’s the way Vanitas decides to speak aloud. “Interesting that the Al Bhed summoner is the first one I’ve ever met that I thought had a chance at taking out Sin.”

“Oh,” Ven says quietly, something pleased lurking in the sound. “You’re… you’re the first person I’ve ever heard say that,” he admits.

“That’s a damn shame. Not even your dad?”

“No. He tried to stop me from going on my pilgrimage.”

“But you didn’t listen.”

Ven laughs quietly. The sound is beautiful. Vanitas wishes there was enough light here to illuminate the way it escapes his mouth. “He wanted me to at least wait until I found a guardian, but we both knew that would never happen. Who in their right mind would become _ my _ guardian? In most people’s eyes, the only thing more sinful than me is Sin itself.”

“Then why do it? Why deal with all those assholes?”

“Because someone has to defeat Sin, and it’s gonna be me.” Ven says. There’s so much fire in his voice. Vanitas bet it’d shine in his eyes too, just the way it did when he confronted the captain before. His voice grows quieter. “Besides, there’s a lot that people don’t know about the church.”

“Are you going to dish me top-secret church intel, Ven? I can’t wait.”

That gets him to laugh again. “Can you keep a secret?”

“That’s half my job description. The other half is stabbing people.”

A third laugh. Vanitas is on a _ roll. _ “Bevelle Temple is the last place summoners go to, right before they head to Zanarkand. You can’t see it from the entrance, but the entire inside of the temple is operated by machina.” Ven’s voice takes on a darker tilt. Years of pain and rage brim just under the surface. “The same machina that’s labeled my people heretics.”

Now _ that’s _ a secret if Vanitas ever did hear one. He isn’t surprised, though he bets Ven wishes he was surprised. For spectacle’s sake, he lets out a low whistle. “Damn.”

“Yeah. Imagine what it would be like if I could defeat Sin. If people knew that Yevon blessed me enough to bring about a Calm. People would still treat the Al Bhed terribly, yeah, but then they’d know that Yevon doesn’t discriminate the way we do. They’d be forced to know.” 

Vanitas still doesn’t think things will work out that easily, but he decides against bursting Ven’s bubble. If Yevon is real, then wherever he is, the last thing he gives a shit about is a bunch of stupid humans. “That’d be a nice world, Ven.”

“Thank you,” Ven says quietly.

“For what?”

“For listening. Not many people do.”

“It’s like what I said before. You’re interesting.”

* * *

Kilika Island has always been beautiful, made up of a motley of complex boardwalks that let the port step off the island and lay claim to the ocean itself and sprawling woods that leave the island in a year-long humid haze. 

Ven’s eyes light up when they step off the boat. “I never thought it would look like this,” he whispers, stepping carefully across the planks that separate them from the murky depths below. “Is it bad that I want to explore this place?”

Vanitas snorts. “It’s your life. Who cares if you spend a few days exploring? Besides, it’s not like you’re anywhere close to the temple right now. You even know where it is?”

Ven shakes his head. Vanitas points to the main island. It looks so far away from where they stand. “There.” 

“Oh...”

“Have fun.”

They part ways after that, and though a promise to see each other one more time before Ven sets off for the mainland burns at Vanitas’s throat, he says nothing. He also denies the pull that tries to make his steps follow Ven’s. There’s a part of him that wants to see Ven gasp in wonder at the dense woods and warm fire that permeates every part of the mountain, so unlike the arid desert of Home or the urban decay of Bevelle. 

He tries to shoo away those thoughts, buzzing at his mind like flies over a carcass left to swelter in the sun. This is why he hates being around summoners. They make him soft.

_ (Ephemer had laughed when Vanitas said there wasn’t a soft edge to him. “Then what’s this?” Ephemer had teased, running fingers along Vanitas’s cheeks. Always rounder than he wished they were, a stubborn youthfulness clinging to his skin that never befit a mercenary like him. Ephemer’s face was round, his cheeks a little chubby, but the rest of him was nothing but hard muscle and sharp bones. _

_ In only a few days, Ephemer had wormed his way under Vanitas’s shield and cracked open all the parts of him he tried to hide away. Skuld had laughed at him too, then taught him to play games that his gutter rat childhood in Luca could have never afforded him. _

_ Such a small fraction of his life, so long ago at this point, and Vanitas still thinks of them often.) _

The mountain is too humid, the forest too dense and too apt at hiding Sinspawn for Vanitas’s taste. He sticks to the port instead, dipping his toes in the cool ocean water and sipping a mix of coconut milk and Kilikan liquor. The bartender even added a little paper umbrella with a wink and an offer to stop by her room above the bar tonight. If Vanitas was into women, he probably would have accepted. Probably would have also regretted it in the morning and slipped out with the rising sun filtering through her bedroom window, but accepted anyways.

He spends the night fishing instead. Gives his haul to a restaurant owner in exchange for a free meal and a floor to sleep on. A little Gil speeds the process along. 

He wakes up to a boat full of refugees, broken and sobbing and bloodied beyond compare, streaming into the tiny port the next morning. Vanitas doesn’t need to ask to know what happened.

Fifty years without an attack was apparently too long for Sin.

He recognizes a Blitzball player curled up on the edge of the network of bridges that evening, looking ready to drop down into the ocean and never return. Vanitas doesn’t remember her name, but he takes a seat next to her. She barely notices his presence.

“Protecting the village?” she sighs. “We can’t do that. We don’t fight Sin. We kick balls around. How could they think otherwise?”

Vanitas lets out a low whistle. He can’t deny the part of him that’s grateful he followed Ven out here. The boat ride is half a day long. Sin must have attacked just a few hours after they left. Look at that summoner, saving a life without even knowing it.

“Look. You travel a lot, right? You must know where the temple is here.”

“I do.”

Vanitas notices just how filthy she is, covered in sand and grit. At least her injuries are nothing more than scrapes and bruises. Vanitas prefers potions to healing magic, but a simple Cure would fix her right away. The blitzball player digs into her pocket and deposits a small bag of Gil into his hand. “Go find some priests to help us, please? There’s no one but merchants and shopkeeps here.”

Vanitas does. He hates the fucking woods even more than he hates the temple, but he treks through them anyways. A job is a job, even if it’s for a paltry sum that isn’t worth much more than a night in a particularly shitty inn.

It’s also the least he can do for the village that became more of a home to him than Luca ever was. He doesn’t think he can take going back to help with repairs - for all the time he’s spent there, he’s nothing more than a tourist - but he can round up some priests to patch up the ones who made it here. 

The woods teem with fiends, but Vanitas cuts them down with ease. Against his better judgement, his thoughts drift back to Ven. He must have gotten to the temple by now, right? Probably stuck down in the bowels of the place, face pressed to the fayth and praying his little heart out. 

As it turns out, Vanitas is wrong. He finds Ven sitting on the steps of the temple, an apple in one hand and a small book in the other. A statue of a woman stands tall and proud over him, though she’s bracketed by scaffolding that speaks to renovations. She’s in summoner’s garb, robes that drape her as a parallel to Ven’s. The color is gone from her own, but Vanitas could imagine it with ease: blues and blacks. A sibling to the gray and cream that Ven wears. 

Ven perks up when he sees Vanitas, an easy smile flitting across his face. “Hey! I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“I need priests.”

“What? Why?”

“Sin attacked Besaid. There are some refugees down at the port who need help.”

Ven’s on his feet instantly. “I’ll go down there first. You get the priests in the temple.” Before Vanitas can protest - shouldn’t the summoner get the priests? - he’s racing down the steps, a blur of fabric and fluffy blond hair. 

Vanitas trudges up the rest of the stairs.

* * *

The refugees have all been patched up and corralled into every single nook and cranny of Kilika Temple by the time night falls. Vanitas feels sleep tug at the corners of his mind, but he still helps the Besaidian blitzball player up every single fire-warmed step. He brings her to one of the summoner rooms turned refugee space and helps her get in bed. 

“You didn’t have to help me,” she says.

“And you didn’t have to let me watch all your shitty practices. We’re even now.”

She cracks a grin at that. “Go get some more Gil and come back to Besaid in a few years. We’ll make it better than ever. Just you wait.”

She’s a strong one, this Blitzball player. He’ll remember her face - heart-shaped, small ski-slope nose, framed by maroon hair and inlaid with big indigo eyes - but he has no idea what her name is. The same applies to him in her mind, he's certain of it. 

Maybe it’s better that way.

Vanitas lets her rest and heads back into the main hall of the temple. He has every intention of going back to the restaurant on the water, trading in another sack of gil for some floor space to crash on for the night, and cutting his vacation short the next morning. He could probably pick up some decent jobs along the Mi’hen Highroad. There are always idiot travelers getting robbed by bandits there. Maybe send some of the money back to Besaid to help them rebuild.

He exits to an argument. One between Ven and one of the priests, actually. By the looks of her fancy robes, she must be the high priestess of the place. Vanitas creeps closer, curious to see what conversation has put such an ugly expression on the Al Bhed’s pretty face.

“For the last time, Sir Summoner, we cannot allow you in without a guardian! You’ll be stuck in the Cloisters until the next summoner and their guardians come along, and we have no way of knowing when that’ll be!”

“That is not a rule! I’ve been studying the teachings of Yevon since I was five, and I know for a fact that there is no writing that says that anywhere! Guardians can assist with the Cloisters, but there are countless summoners who have done it alone!”

“I’m sorry, but that’s simply the policy here.”

A thought worms its way into Vanitas’s head. He really, _ really _ shouldn’t humor it. He should just keep walking. Pretend he didn’t hear anything.

_ (The summoner’s tale has always been a beautiful one.) _

Vanitas approaches the two, though he comes to a stop at Ven’s side. He places one hand on the hilt of the sword eternally at his hip and drapes the other around Ven’s shoulder, casually intimate enough that the priestess politely averts her eyes away, even if only for a second. 

Guardians and summoners have a special bond, though it takes many forms: siblings, close friends, relatives.

Lovers.

“Is there a problem here?” Vanitas asks, pulling Ven a little closer to him. Ven takes the hint, grasping the hand that’s come to rest on his shoulder with one of his own.

“I’m sorry, but who are you?”

“My summoner’s guardian. Like I said - is there a problem?”

She looks lost. From his close, he can feel Ven suck in a sudden breath. An aborted snicker, probably. Vanitas has to fight off a grin of his own at the thought. “My guardian was down at the port, helping all the refugees from Besaid. We need to head out as soon as possible, so I wanted to obtain the aeon while he was busy. Looks like he’s done, though.” Ven lies with the skill of someone who has done nothing but that their whole life. Given how closely guarded his identity as a Maester’s son is, it makes sense.

The priestess looks ready to argue, but she closes her mouth. She backs up and does that stupid greeting Yevonites always do to each other - the bow and the cupped hands, like they’re holding a damn blitzball or something. Ven lets go of Vanitas’s hand to do the gesture back. 

Moments later, the door is opening into the mouth of the temple, and Vanitas follows Ven into the depths.

* * *

Kilika’s Cloister of Trials is a little harder than Besaid’s, but both pale in comparison to the labyrinth Bevelle was. With Vanitas helping, it goes faster than it would have been if Ven faced it alone. Ava hovers on the edges of Ven’s vision, content to watch the two figure out the puzzles themselves. She tends to talk less when others are around, mostly for Ven’s sake. She doesn’t want to embarrass him by making him accidentally talk to air.

“If anyone finds out we lied, we’ll both be excommunicated,” Ven says, chatting as if talking about the sunshine right outside the temple. 

Vanitas shrugs. “Was never one much for Yevon or his teachings anyways.”

_ From what you’ve told me, won’t you also be killed? _Ava adds, speaking up for the first time since entering the temple. Ven waits until Vanitas’s back is turned and nods to her. He has to be the perfect summoner. Anything less means death for him.

Then again, both his best _ and _ worst case scenarios end in his death. Which is fine. Everyone’s slated for death eventually. Ven just wants to make his matter.

“Sure, but that doesn’t matter when you’re in the bottom of the Via Purifico,” Ven says. He hears Vanitas swallow some kind of strangled sound. Everyone who stays in Bevelle for longer than a week knows about that place. Ven’s seen the entrance. He never wants to see anything more. 

“Good point.”

“Why do you _ keep _ helping me, Vanitas?” he steps closer to Vanitas, careful to drop his voice to a whisper. The priests aren’t allowed to interfere with the trials once a summoner enters, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful. “You know I don’t have a guardian.”

Vanitas shows him a sharp-toothed grin. The sight sparks something in Ven, but what it is, he can’t explain. All he knows is that it’s the same thing that makes this mercenary so striking. Whatever it is, Ven thinks he might like it. “Like I said before. You’re interesting.”

Summoners are supposed to have guardians. It’s one of the most important teachings any hopeful acolyte can receive. To travel without one is unthinkable, but Ven’s gotten along fine so far. Between his own magic and his aeons, he’s more than capable of defending himself. 

_ (“I’m going to be your guardian, Aqua,” Terra had said, for years and years before their pilgrimage. Even if the world nevr bothered to care, Ven knows that the journey was theirs, as much his as hers. _

_ There’s a grave for him, in the garden behind Maester Eraqus’s home. The bodies of High Summoner’s guardians never return, though no one is certain why. Without a body to bury, Maester Eraqus buried a metal star charm Aqua had made Terra back when they were children. _

_ That grave still stands behind his home to this day. The only record of Terra’s existence.) _

“I guess you’re pretty interesting, too,” Ven replies, at a loss for what else he could say. Vanitas flashes him another sharp-toothed grin before he moves away, determined to help Ven solve a puzzle he has no reason to assist with. Ava trails after him, examining him with an air of importance far beyond her ghostly form would suggest. She’s the wisest person he’s ever met.

_ I like him, _ is all she says about Vanitas. All she needs to say. 

_ Me too, _ Ven mouths to her. 

Vanitas does help him through the Cloister, claiming that the faster they solve these stupid puzzles, the faster they can get out of his sweltering dungeon. Plus, he’d be bored if all he did was sit around and watch Ven stumble through the riddles. His words, not Ven’s. 

They do finish much faster than Ven finished Besaid’s trial. It feels nice, and though exhaustion tugs at Ven’s body from a day full of healing injured refugees, he walks into the Chamber of the Fayth with his head held high.

Vanitas tries to follow. Unlike a true guardian, he doesn’t know he isn’t supposed to. Ven has to stop him, but he stops him with a smile on his face and a promise to return soon. 

Ava disappears inside these chambers just like she did in Besaid, returning to curl close to his heart and letting nothing but his prayers guide the new fayth towards him. The heat was noticeable outside. In here, it causes beads of sweat to roll down his back and dampen his robes. He wipes away the sweat rolling down his temple with his sleeve, gets to his knees, and prays.

Ifrit responds to Ven’s plea for strength. Strength to defeat Sin, to heal those injured by it, to be a beacon of hope for such a battered world. He mourns for Besaid in that chamber, every tear he hid during the countless Cure spells he cast on the displaced survivors finally coming forth. There’s strength in tears, and Ven knows that Ifrit knows that. Grief can turn to power, given the right prompting.

Ifrit’s fayth is a hulking mass of a man, brimming with power. His aeon is no different, a version of this fiery mountain pounded down into a vaguely humanoid shape. Ifrit is the burning flame, the one that consumes all in its path. It is unwavering. Strong. Unyielding.

Ifrit settles deep behind his ribs, fire melting the bones in his back to tempered steel. He’ll need this strength to defeat Sin. 

He’ll need so much more.

* * *

Ven passes out the moment he steps out of the Chamber of the Fayth. Full on collapses in a puddle of his own sweat. It’s disgusting. 

Vanitas smacks his cheeks a little, trying to get those pretty eyelashes of his to flutter open. When they don’t, Vanitas hisses a curse under his breath and drags the limp summoner up. It takes an unholy amount of maneuvering to get Ven onto Vanitas’s back, but he manages it eventually. The priests are all in fits over the blue flames that coat the inside of the temple - apparently the sign of a successful summoner, judging from the chatter he picks up - including the high priestess herself, but Vanitas pays them no mind. 

It’s long past nightfall by this point, judging by the darkened windows of the temple. When Vanitas steps outside, his suspicions are confirmed. The moon hangs a vigil over the sky, joined by a glittering blanket of stars that all those fools in Luca and Bevelle barely know exist.

He wonders if the Al Bhed on his back would enjoy the sight above them. He also wonders if either of them will stick around long enough to find out the answer.

He takes Ven back to the restaurant. The owner isn’t too happy to be woken up at such a late hour, but she’s more than happy enough to give them her spare room for the bag of Gil Vanitas produces from pretty much nowhere. He’s burning through his vacation savings faster than he wanted.

The bed looks comfortable, but Vanitas takes pity on the unconscious summoner on his back and dumps him there. Vanitas grabs a wet rag and wipes some of the dried sweat off Ven’s face and neck. He leaves a glass of water at his bedside before laying down for the night, claiming a spot on the wooden floor for himself.

He wishes he could sleep like the dead, the way Ven does in that tiny bed.

All he gets that night are a scant few hours of sleep and a plan. He keeps the former to himself and outlines the latter to Ven the next morning, over a breakfast of Kilikan fruit and frozen coffee. “Djose’s the next closest temple, right? I’ll tag along with you until then. After you get your next aeon, you can go to wherever it is you’re headed to next and I’ll stick around Mi’hen for a bit. Build up some savings. Deal?”

“Are you saying we travel together?” Ven asks. His raised eyebrow says suspicion, but his swirling pupils hold nothing but excitement. Vanitas finds it contagious. He ends up grinning right back at the summoner.

“I might be.”

“Then I might accept. It’s like what I said before,” Ven grins, so proud of himself for parroting Vanitas’s words back to him. “You’re interesting, too.”

_ (“I think you’re destined for something great,” Skuld had told him, right before she walked into the haze of Djose and out of his life forever. The silver-haired summoner, one that was both his and hers at that point, had already sank into the mist, never to be seen again. _

_ “If that something is found at the end of a sword, then yeah, probably.” _

_ But Skuld shook her head. A clear rejection. “No. Something even bigger than that.” _

_ He never believed her. Maybe he should have.) _

* * *

Luca is the most beautiful shithole in all of Spira. The most popular jobs in the entire city revolve around blitzball and the Crusaders. Essentially, playing sports and protecting the city from Sin so sports can be played.

Vanitas grew up in the shadow of the stadium, selling bootleg merchandise to unsuspecting idiots from across Spira who made the trek to support their home team. It kept food on the table and not much else. 

People don’t stare at Ven as much as they do in other cities. The Al Bhed team is a constant presence in Luca. One more Al Bhed doesn’t make a strange sight. 

Yevon comes second to blitzball in this city. Anything and everything else, shitty discrimination included, is a distant third. The robes sure get Ven a few odd looks, but again, if it isn’t blitzball in Luca, it doesn’t matter. 

“It’s been years since I’ve seen another one of my people,” Ven says quietly, watching a couple of Al Bhed girls drift past them. They catch Ven’s eye and say a greeting in their language, one that Ven doesn’t return. The phrase is simple enough that Vanitas recognizes it, but Ven’s face stays blank.

“What’d they say?” Ven says, turning to face Vanitas. He immediately rolls his eyes. “Why am I even asking? How would you know Al Bhed?”

“They said hi.”

A flush blooms over Ven’s face. It’d be cute if Vanitas knew it wasn’t born from shame. The sight makes something painful twist in his chest. Against his better instinct, he claps a hand on Ven’s shoulder and pulls him a little closer. He really shouldn’t allow himself to get attached - they’re brief travel companions, nothing more - but the tiny scream in the back of his mind is drowned out by the grunt of surprise that escapes Ven. 

“You know what’ll make you feel better? Blitzball. You’ve never seen a match before, have you?”

Ven shakes his head. “The general public aren’t allowed to watch practices in Bevelle.”

“Another reason why Bevelle sucks. Come on. Let’s go watch a match.” Without waiting for a response, Vanitas starts pushing Ven in the direction of the stadium. There’s a match going on there almost every single day of the year, tournament season or not. This game, stupid as it may be, is the only decent distraction the entire continent has. Spirans will hold onto it with all they have. 

They come so late in the afternoon that the match has already started. While Vanitas has years’ worth of experience sneaking in without a ticket, the risk of getting jailed for the night for sneaking in isn’t worth the reward. Ven seems hesitant about staying another day, but he relents without too much of a fuss. 

They eat Lucan candied fiend claws (_not _ made from real fiends, which Vanitas has to assure of Ven multiple times), settled in a thick sauce over blue blitzball rice, and find an inn to stay in for the night. The downtime prickles at Ven’s skin, that much is obvious, but Vanitas decides against calling him out. Maybe if they were closer, or maybe if there was a chance of ever seeing him again after Djose, Vanitas would.

Instead he rolls over and begs for sleep to take him. For far too many hours, it doesn’t.

They get to the stadium early the next morning, early enough to get some nice tickets. The stadium slowly fills with people as the minutes stretch on and the match comes ever closer. It’s a beautiful coincidence that the Al Bhed team happens to be playing a scrimmage against Bevelle’s team today. 

“Which one are you gonna root for?” Vanitas asks. 

Ven tilts his head with a hum. “Both? Neither? I’m not sure.”

The answer ends up being neither, when a girl just a few years younger than them plops down into the empty seat besides Ven. She’s a slight thing, drowning in a cheap play at summoner’s robes. The orange pigtails don’t help her look any more mature. Her eyes, two bright teal rings that glow in an already-bright face, stare wondrous holes into Ven’s clothes.

“Are you a real summoner?” she asks, her voice small. Vanitas gets ready to snap at her for being an ass, but Ven sets a hand on his thigh and offers the girl a kind smile. Vanitas is too distracted by the touch to participate any further.

“Yep! I’m on my pilgrimage right now. My…” he casts a hesitant glance back to Vanitas before steel tempers it to something resolute, “...guardian, and I, are taking a little break before heading out. This is his hometown and I’ve never seen a blitzball match, so he wanted to take me.”

“This is my hometown, too!” she chirps. “I wanted to see one last blitzball match before I left for my pilgrimage.”

What is she, fifteen? She’s too young to throw her life away like that. Vanitas cranes his neck to look around her, trying to discern if the people with her are the same idiots who agreed to be her guardians. There’s a girl next to her that looks about her age, her every movement knife-sharp. Her voice comes out sounding like its ready to be laced with poison at the slightest misstep. The boy behind her is clearly older than both, and also clearly calmer than both, carrying an air of elegance with him that the girls lack. 

Ven spends the entire time chatting with the summoner girl - Strelitzia, Vanitas learns. The two next to her are her girlfriend and her brother - Elrena and Lauriam. Her soon-to-be guardians. 

By the match’s end, Ven has only cheered for the acolyte at his side. He’s even promised that she and her guardians can travel with Ven and Vanitas to Djose temple. Summoners don’t often travel together, but there’s strength in numbers. Especially on a place like Mi’hen. Five travelers are much harder to rob than two.

Even though the agreement itches at his skin, Vanitas doesn’t protest. He has no right to. Protesting means he has enough of a stake in the matter to care, and he can’t let himself have that.

At the same time, it’s hard to tell himself that when Ven spends all of dinner talking about the match. He picked up much more than Vanitas expected.

* * *

For someone used to travel, Mi’hen takes a few days to cross. Ven wouldn’t know, having taken a very long boat ride from Bevelle to Besaid, but he believes his source easily enough. According to that same source, Vanitas has done the journey so many times he can do it in a day-and-a-half.

For their party, he thinks it’ll take a little over a week. Strelitzia’s guardians hold up well enough, but Strelitzia herself struggles to be on her feet walking for hours on end. What drives her through the end of most days is sheer stubbornness. 

Summoners aren’t fit the way someone like Vanitas is fit. There’s a certain physical fortitude needed to travel across all of Spira while carving out parts of yourself to make room for the aeons along the way, but the difference between a summoner and a soldier is easy enough to see. He sees it well enough between himself and Vanitas. Ven is soft, smooth skin and muscle hidden under a thin layer of fat, while Vanitas is nothing but lithe muscles buried under roped scar tissue. 

Strelitzia is neither of those. With a few months of physical training, she’d survive the journey much easier. With how she is now, Ven worries for her. If she makes it all the way to Mount Gagazet, Ven despairs if she’ll be able to survive weeks of trekking through the frigid cold.

At the very least, what she lacks in physical strength she makes up for in sheer determination. Every single day ends not when she wants it to, but when Lauriam or Elrena demand her to camp for the night. 

She’s also the first to wake, as Ven quickly discovers. While the sun hovers on the horizon, Ven rouses himself from his slumber. Vanitas is fast asleep on the mat beside him, though he knows from experience that he’ll be jolted awake by Ven moving around within moments.

When a golden eye cracks open while Ven’s in the middle of folding his mat and setting it with their supplies, he’s far from surprised. Just like he’s far from surprised when Vanitas, upon seeing the sheer lack of danger, rolls over and promptly falls back asleep.

What does surprise Ven is spying Strelitzia up and on the edge of the small clearing they’ve turned into their camp. Her head is bowed in what must be prayer.

Smiling, he joins her side and goes through his own morning prayers. He still follows the traditions set out by Maester Eraqus, tracing the same words perfected by generations of Maesters.

_ (Aqua had taught him his first prayers. She helped him bow his head and walked him through the words again and again until he could say them perfectly. Some of the first Spiran words he ever learned came from those prayers. He could pray perfectly long before he stopped struggling to string a sentence together. _

_ He prays to Yevon most of all, but he always sends his final prayer to her.) _

They finish their individual prayers long before their guardians rise. Strelitzia’s eyes blink open and she directs a gentle smile towards Ven. “Good morning, Ven.”

“Morning,” Ven replies cheerily. “Thanks for letting me join you. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to pray with someone.”

“You’re the first Al Bhed I’ve ever seen pray to Yevon,” she says.

“A lot of Al Bhed openly reject the teachings of Yevon.”

Strelitzia nods. “I’m friends with some of the Al Bhed blitzball players. They’re really nice, but they don’t understand why I wanted to become a summoner. People aren’t as religious in Luca, so they said it’s their favorite place on the mainland.”

He noticed that. The hostility he felt at Besaid and Kilika - especially Kilika - was nothing more than a brief simmer in Luca. Vanitas hates the city, too many bad memories lurking there, but it was nice. In another world, Ven would have liked to spend more time there.

So many Spirans hate the Al Bhed because of their use of machina. If only they knew that the biggest temple in all of Spira ran on nothing _ but _ machina. He wonders what other excuse they’d pull out to hate his people with.

“I can only name one other summoner who would ever agree to travel with me.”

“Who?” Strelitzia asks.

“My sister.”

She leans closer, her voice pitched high with excitement. “You have a sister? And she’s a summoner? What’s her name? I’ve met a lot of summoners who pass through Luca - maybe I’ve seen her!”

Ven chuckles. She definitely has. “Her name was Aqua.”

“Aqua? Like…” she trails off, leaning back on her hands. “What a weird coincidence.”

“It isn’t a coincidence. We’re adopted siblings.”

That’s what does it. Strelitzia turns towards him slowly, realization sparking over her like fireworks. Something clicks in her mind and she nearly lets out a screech, though she claps a hand over her mouth right before the sound can pinwheel through their small camp and wake up her guardians and Ven’s person. “Really!? No wonder your forms are so flawless!”

Ven fights down a flush at the praise. It’s been so long since someone praised him like that. 

_ (“Your forms are getting better every day, Ven,” Aqua had said, ruffling his hair. She loved the texture of it, soft and fluffy like pristine desert sand. She said it was different from hers and Terra’s, though he’d never noticed. He couldn’t even reach the top of Terra’s head, even when he stood on his tiptoes. _

_ “One day, I’m gonna be just as good as you,” Ven had said. _

_ Her smile was so kind, so impossibly full of love. “I’m sure you will.” _

_ No one Sends High Summoners, but when the Calm came, Ven spent countless hours drafting a dance that would have made her proud.) _

“I’ve had a lot of practice,” he says.

They chat about things only summoners can chat about for longer than twenty minutes - aeons and prayers and what temples are like. Strelitzia has never left Luca before, her knowledge of the world beyond her city resting only on movie spheres tucked into the corners of the Luca and stories of her girlfriend’s hometown. 

Apparently, Strelitzia nearly passed out from sheer excitement when Ven called Valefor forward to take care of some fiends they faced on a deserted part of the path. She doesn’t even know Ven already has Bahamut.

Ven hasn’t seen Ava since he met Strelitza, though it makes sense. Summoners can see the fayth. He doubts she wants to scare this young summoner. He also doubts that Ava would actually scare Strelitzia if she appeared. If anything, seeing her would just invigorate Strelitzia. He brings a hand to his chest and silently coaxes her forward. 

Just like that, her shimmering form, still clad in her pink robes and still with her eyes obscured from the world, appears next to them. _ Hello. _

Strelitzia may have never been to a temple, but he sees the tremor that goes through her and instantly identifies the reason. He felt that way the first time Maester Eraqus snuck him inside of Bevelle’s temple. That much power takes a power of your own to be around. To her credit, she recognizes what Ava is instantly. “Are you… an aeon?”

Ava nods. _ I am Bahamut. And who are you, young summoner? _

“S-Strelitzia,” she says, scrambling to face Ava. She bows her head and gestures respectfully. “It’s an honor to meet you!” 

Ava smiles. She never smiles with her teeth, only ever her lips. Much more controlled with her emotions than Ven is. _ I’ve been watching you. You have a very kind heart. _

“T-thank you! I think kindness is one of the greatest ways to bring hope to people. There’s so much evil in the world. Even if kindness can’t eradicate evil, I can at least try my hardest not to invite it in.”

_ Spoken like a true follower of Yevon. _

* * *

Vanitas has no clue what the fuck Ven did, but he’s certain Ven did something. Strelitzia moves with an even greater purpose in the last half of their trip, pushing herself to the point of collapse day after day. When her legs give out, she begs Elrena to carry her forward. Elrena, being young and sickeningly in love, does, even if she complains with every single step. 

Vanitas wonders how much they buy into this Yevonite garbage. Strelitzia clearly does. He thinks Lauriam buys into it to some degree as well. He does the gestures and always name-drops deities to cheer his sister on. He isn’t sure about Elrena. Given her personality, as caustic and rude as it is, he isn’t certain if she buys into anything that isn’t Strelitzia.

She’s tender to her summoner in a way that goes against her every other action. That’s what being in love does to you - it makes you do dumb shit that you’d never consider otherwise. 

They make it to Djose. Vanitas has only been to the temple once before. He remembers the static electricity that would hang in the air, clinging to his clothes and vibrating in his teeth. This place is powered by lightning rocks and it fucking sucks. The sooner he gets out of here, the better.

And yet when the two summoners stand in front of the temple, trying to figure out who should go in first, Vanitas knows the answer that speaks to him. “Strelitzia should,” he says, turning to face the young summoner. She watches him curiously, 

“You’ve waited this long, haven’t you? You might die of a heart attack if you have to wait for Ven to come out. Guy likes to take his time when he prays.”

“What’s that supposed to mean!?” Ven says, punching Vanitas’s shoulder. The tap is light and teasing, a beautiful compliment to Ven’s laughter-filled voice. Vanitas’s stomach does a familiar kind of swoop.

_ (He fell for Ephemer the first moment they touched, skin brushing against skin and setting Vanitas sparking when all Ephemer did was hand him a bowl of food. For all the electricity hanging in the air, nothing could compare to the brush of their hands. _

_ An instant connection. A romantic tragedy Vanitas could never tear himself from.) _

It’s strange, being here with another summoner. Didn’t Vanitas swear he’d never come back to Djose temple ever again? 

“Ven… is it okay if I go in first?” Strelitzia asks cautiously. “Vanitas has a point. I’ve trained for so long for this moment. I’ll die of nerves if I wait any longer.”

“It’s okay. I don’t mind waiting. You’ll be in there for a while, okay? Take care of yourself,” Ven says, nodding at Strelitzia and her guardians. She shares an excited look with them before the three enter into the temple. They’ll get in without a problem. Prior aeons or not, Strelitzia looks the perfect part of a summoner. No one would dare question her authority.

Ven is another story. Vanitas catches those swirling pupils looking at him. He raises an eyebrow. “What?”

“Is this the end of our time together?” Ven asks. Vanitas coughs, surprised by how sudden the change in tone is. Ven doesn’t wear his despondency well - Vanitas has half a mind to do whatever he can to wipe it away. He’s stabbed fiends three times his size in the heart without breaking a sweat, yet a frown from a cute summoner is enough to do him in? Ridiculous.

“Nah,” Vanitas says. He’s strong in a lot of ways. In this, he’s ridiculously weak. “Let’s get you that aeon first.”

Ven’s voice drops to a whisper. “Are you going to enter the Cloister of Trials with me again?”

“Will they even let you in if I don’t?”

“...Probably not.”

“I figured.” But aeons and trials and stupid fucking puzzles can all wait a while. Ven will take forever to pray to the fayth, and that’s with several aeons under his command. It’ll probably take Strelitzia all night long, and that’s if she’s lucky. “Who else will badger the priests into getting us a room for the night?”

The only reason why the priests relent into giving them a room - all to themselves, too - is because Vanitas helped one of the priest’s kids travel across Mi’hen last time he was here. 

“I thought you were that silver-haired guy’s guardian,” the priest says as he leads Ven and Vanitas to their room. It’s small, but it has a door that locks and a bed that isn’t made of grass. That’s all Vanitas really needs. 

“I barely knew him,” Vanitas says. It isn’t a lie. It’s better when you don’t get to know summoners. Better when you don’t kiss them in the moonlight or bury your hands in their hair or fall for them, one snipped smile at a time. 

“Oh,” the priest says. “Could have fooled me.” He bows to them both, though only Ven bows back. When the priest leaves, no doubt hiding a scowl with his turned back, Vanitas slams the door shut and collapses onto the bed. There’s only one in this room, but it’s not that big of a deal. It’s massive. They can share. 

“Silver-haired guy?” Ven asks, sitting down at the end of the bed.

“I’ve met a lot of summoners,” Vanitas bites out. Ven notices the sudden hostility and though he scowls, he doesn’t push any further. Instead, he flops down at Vanitas’s side and stares up at the ceiling. It pulses with shocks of silver lightning, just like the rest of this damn temple. 

“I think I’m gonna miss you,” Ven says. “It’s been so long since I’ve had a friend like you. Not since Terra and Aqua left.”

“How long ago was that?”

“How long ago did the last Calm start?”

Vanitas pauses. “Five years.”

“Since then.”

Vanitas barks out a laugh. Why else would Ven doggedly pursue his own death, if not to honor someone else? Ven swats at his arm, but the move is ineffectual and Vanitas pushes his hand away with ease. 

Vanitas knows exactly how to pick ‘em. He curses his stupid heart and rolls onto his side. Takes in the sight of this _ (of his?) _ Al Bhed summoner, with his fluffy hair and flowing robes and swirling pupils, looking at him with frustration that simmers down to a simple curiosity. It’d be so easy to doom himself alongside this summoner, to close the gap between them and curse himself until he follows this idiot into the Farplane. If he bridges that gap, there’s no going back. 

He still thinks of Ephemer too often for his liking. If Vanitas let himself have anything more than the strange friendship they share, then he’d spend the rest of his life thinking of Ven. He knows this. 

Following Ven this far has already been the most foolish job he’s ever taken. There’s no reward at the end of this one. There's only death, though whether it’ll be one celebrated or forgotten remains to be seen.

“Yes?” Ven asks, raising an eyebrow. Vanitas doesn’t miss the chuckle in his voice as he does so. 

“Nothing,” Vanitas says, followed by, “Let’s try to get some sleep. I bet you’ll wanna see Strelitzia when she gets out.”

* * *

Strelitzia stumbles out of the temple early the next morning. Voice clamor right outside their room, jolting Vanitas back to wakefulness. 

Ven is already up, halfway through cinching his robes in place. He ties his clothes correctly, or at least correctly enough that it doesn’t set off Vanitas’s dulled senses as looking odd, but he forgets his shoes as he throws the door open and rushes outside. Vanitas follows after him, still in his sleep clothes.

Strelitzia is supported by her guardians, one on either side of her. Lightning races over her body, causing her to shriek in pain. Somehow, it sticks only to her skin, sparing her guardians from whatever torment she must be going through.

“Cure!” Elrena shouts, a warm light settling over her summoner. It’s followed by another arc of silver lightning, making Strelitzia’s mussed hair stand on end. “I said _ Cure, dammit!” _The spell races over her once more, but like the previous attempt, it does nothing. 

Ven rushes to his side, but the priests get there first. The high priest of the temple, an elderly man with trembling hands and a kind smile, shakes his head as he stops by her side. Elrena nearly lashes out at him as he approaches. “You! _ Do _something! Help her!”

“She wasn’t prepared to accept Ixion’s power,” he replies.

“Bullshit! She’s trained for two years! I haven’t seen anyone in my life more devout than her! The aeon must be broken or something!”

“Elrena,” Lauriam warns, his voice low and dangerous. “Not here.”

“She’s your baby sister! Shouldn’t you be protecting her just as much as me?”

“That tongue of yours won’t help us here,” Lauriam says. He looks around, eyes settling on Ven. “Tell her.”

Ven steps forward, though he’s careful to keep a respectful distance from the high priest. “He’s right, Elrena,” Ven says. Strelitzia lets out another weak cry as her knees give out. “It takes a lot of strength to handle an aeon. Her heart was more than ready, but I don’t think her body was.”

“Aeons lay claim to your body. They’ll ravage a weak summoner from the inside out,” the high priest says. “It may have been better if Ixion refused her prayer, but her stubbornness must have won out. He’s always respected stubbornness.”

If that’s the case, then Ven will get him without a problem. That thought quickly drifts away from his mind as the priest lays out instructions of what to do next. They’ll care for Strelitzia here for the next few days, but the high priest is emphatic that she cannot continue her pilgrimage until she gets stronger. Another aeon will surely kill her, he says.

For as much as Elrena wants to fight back, that sure shuts her up. 

Ven and Vanitas stay with the young summoner, crowded into the small room the priests give to her and her guardians. Ven helps wipe the sweat from her brow as Elrena holds her love’s hand in a death grip, her face red from the sheer effort it takes to hold back her tears. All Strelitzia can do is scream, though her cries grow weaker as the hours wear on.

Eventually she passes out from a mix of exhaustion and pain. That’s when Ven and Vanitas take their leave. There’s a newfound determination propelling Ven forward as he approaches the high priest.

“Let me into the Cloister of Trials,” he demands. The priest looks ready to protest, but something about Ven makes him hold his tongue. He bows to Ven, then instructs the other priests to let them step forward.

The temple doors slide open, arcing with silver lightning. Ven steps into the darkness with his head held high.

With no other choice, Vanitas follows.

* * *

Ixion was a strong, stubborn man in life, according to the legends. He once tried to lead a village that was once foolish enough enough to settle on the banks of the Djose river, but it was quickly revealed that a political position was never the role he meant to take. 

His fayth stands proudly in the glass at Ven’s feet, his back forever to the world he once tried to rule. He responds to Ven’s stubbornness, his iron dedication to seeing his pilgrimage through to the end. 

He’ll make this sacrifice, so someone like Strelitzia doesn’t have to. 

_ Help me spare her life. I won’t leave until you do. _

When Ixion races to life, a unicorn of sparks and thunder filling the chamber with sound and fury, he settles in space between Ven’s skull and temples. The front of his mind, ready to charge forward and lead the way.

* * *

Ven leaves a still-unconscious Strelitzia with a prayer for a quick recovery. 

Outside the gates of Djose Temple, Ven and Vanitas stand face to face. Staring at each other. Neither ready to say goodbye, but feeling time pull them in separate directions.

Two years ago, Vanitas stood in this same spot, bidding farewell to a silver wisp and his shadowy guardian. 

_ (Who would he have become, if he had followed them to their doom? Would he have regretted it?) _

“Thank you for coming this far with me,” Ven says. Vanitas’s chest twists painfully at his words. What he says next is a knife plunging deep into his soul.

“I won’t forget you, Vanitas.”

There are two paths in front of them. One leads back to Mi’hen Highroad, back to a life of jobs, titles born in bloodshed, sacks of gil, and a meaningless life as a sellsword. Down the other leads to the Moonflow, then to Macalania, Mount Gagazet, and every other place that summoners go to die. 

Ven steps forward. Takes Vanitas’s hands in his own and squeezes them tight. His smile is small, but entirely genuine, reflected in his swirling eyes. “I’ll miss you.”

The choice becomes impossibly easy in that moment. There’s a chasm, between what Vanitas knows he should do and what every fiber of his being screams at him to do. 

“I won’t let you.”

Ven laughs. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

This time, Vanitas is the one to drop his voice to a whisper. Careful, so the priests don’t find out their lie. With any hope, it won’t stay a lie for long. “Let me come with you. Be your guardian. For real this time.” Then, with a feral grin, he adds, “You know I’m good at it.”

Ven grins back, just as wild. Rather than answer, he pulls Vanitas into a tight hug. It’s enough for a confirmation for both of them.

They set off together.

_ (A tragedy Vanitas is stupid enough to take part in. He should have known, from the moment he first saw Ven, that this summoner would be the end of him.) _

* * *

Along the banks of the Moonflow, Vanitas forces Ven to slow down. Life runs more calmly along these parts. It’s hard for Ven to move forward at the breakneck pace he insists on killing himself with when every last Hypello along the river randomly decides to take a day off. 

They spend that day walking along the shoreline, watching the moonlilies that grow along its edges blossom into an incandescent beauty after the sun sets. Ven itches with anxious energy for most of the day, but it’s that sight that finally gets him to take a solid breath of relief. 

It’s one of the most gorgeous things Vanitas has ever seen, these flowers that blossom only under moonlight. They feel like remnants of the Farplane, holding an otherworldly aesthetic that few other things can lay claim to. Ven has talked about where he wants to go next - Guadosalam, so he can pay his respects to the last High Summoner and her guardian - his _ siblings, _ in everything but blood. Vanitas wonders if going there will feel half as wonderful as being here does.

At night, they sleep under the stars, stretched out in their tiny camp along the rushing river. The moonlilies give them more than enough light to fumble their way through their supplies, but the crackling embers at their side provide a warmth that flowers can’t. 

“You know what it means for me to go on a pilgrimage, right?” Ven asks. It’s only been a couple days since their travel arrangements became official. This question must have been nagging at his mind the whole time. 

“I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I met you,” Vanitas answers. His honesty surprises even himself. “Worst case scenario - you die. Best case scenario - you die, and people throw parties in honor of it. I know.”

“I wasn’t certain if you did, since you don’t follow Yevon. I’ve heard not everyone really, you know, _ gets _it.”

Vanitas probably gets it better than most. “Look,” he says, turning to face Ven. Half his face is illuminated by the flames; the other half by the moonlilies. One foot in this world, one in the next. With time, he’ll be all in the same place - that’s what this journey is for. “I told you you’re not the first summoner I’ve known. I know how this story ends.”

“Then why come?”

“I said goodbye to a summoner once. Wasn’t ready to do it again.”

“So I’m a replacement?”

Vanitas shrugs. “If you want to think of yourself that way, be my guest. Obviously I threw myself at the feet of every summoner who passed by me in Bevelle before I met you.”

Ven catches the lie for what it is and snickers. “Even if I am, I’m glad. It’s less lonely now that you’re here.” He rolls onto his back, resting his hands behind his head as he looks up to the sky. It’s a clear night tonight, allowing them a view of the stars blanketing them overhead. “I really like it here. I’m glad I could see it.”

And doesn’t that fucking hurt to hear, making something squeeze painfully in Vanitas’s chest. “Don’t get in a rush to die on me, okay?” he snaps, his pain flaring into anger. Ven’s taken aback by the sudden shift in emotion, but he doesn’t back down. He rises to the challenge.

“Vanitas, you know what happened to Besaid! The faster I finish my pilgrimage, the sooner Spira will have another Calm!”

“Yeah, and it’s gonna take for-fucking-ever to get to Zanarkand no matter what we do! You’ll never get to see any of these places again. If you have to live on a timer, then why not enjoy what you get while it lasts?”

Ven has something to live for. He has something to die for, too. Isn’t that all the more reason to enjoy his life while he has it?

_ (He once caught Skuld crying when Ephemer was busy buying supplies. Maybe she felt the same way, knowing that her best friend was slated for death with no alternatives. _

_ He didn’t envy her then, nor does he now.) _

“Because-”

Vanitas cuts him off, uninterested in whatever argument he’ll present. “Look, if you can’t be selfish and enjoy yourself a little, then enjoy yourself for me. I’ve seen all this shit before and I’d sure like to see it again before I freeze my ass off in the mountains. Besides, it’s,” he coughs, “It’s fun being here with you.”

That does him in. The anger in Ven extinguishes, a candlelight flicked out of existence with nothing more than a tap of Vanitas’s fingers. “I… okay. We’re in this together, after all. It isn’t fair to push you as hard as I push myself.” What he says next is so quiet that Vanitas almost misses it. “I _would_ like to see all of the mainland, at least once…”

Fucking tragic, the lot they’ve cast in life.

* * *

Vanitas once spent a long night drinking with a bunch of Al Bhed teens at Home, protected from the frigid desert night by blazing fires and an alcohol that warmed them all from the inside out. Most Al Bhed have nothing good to say about any part of Yevon’s teachings. These teens were no different.

The Farplane, as far as they’re concerned, is nothing more than a pyrefly breeding ground. People go in there looking for their lost loves, but all they find are groups of pyreflies in the shape of their memories. 

Ven - obviously - doesn’t buy into that, given how determined he is to go to Guadosalam and visit the Farplane. 

As for Vanitas… well, he isn’t sure what to think. 

The Guado take to Ven a little more kindly than the bastards in Bevelle do, but that’s not saying much. They’re some of the most devout believers in Yevon’s teachings in all of Spira, and though their wariness of Ven is cloaked in polite words and tight-lipped smiles, Vanitas sees it for what it is. 

Still, they let them into the Farplane. The way that mortals can enter is strange, a glowing portal found at the end of a simple staircase.

“You don’t have to go in if you don’t want to,” Ven says. There’s steel in every single part of him today. Excitement, too, shining bright in his swirling pupils. 

Part of Vanitas doesn’t want to. Regardless of whose story is true, that doesn’t change the fact that he’ll see Ephemer and Skuld. He’s not ready for that. He probably never will be. 

For a mercenary, seeing a summoner three times is impossible. For a guardian, maybe it’s different. 

Vanitas takes a deep breath, desperately vying for even a scrap of the strength he sees in his summoner. “Might as well,” he says. They take the staircase together. On the other side is a mass of swirling ivory clouds, stretching on until it claims even the farthest horizon. Pyreflies dip in and out of his sight. If he focuses on them, then he can see the clouds part and the world beyond theirs reveal itself. 

It’s beautiful, but more than that, it is eerie. He feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as he slides a little closer to Ven. Against his better instinct, he thinks of Ephemer and Skuld. 

The pyreflies gather, coalescing into a translucent silhouette of the silver-haired summoner and the guardian Vanitas met so long ago. They stand side-by-side, friends through even death itself. 

Vanitas’s throat closes up. They look just like he remembers. Happy, smiling at him with twin lights in their eyes, sky-blue and honey-brown. 

Ephemer’s robes are a dead twin to Ven’s.

“This is the summoner, right?” Ven asks softly. “He looks kind.”

Voice gone, Vanitas nods. He could have loved him in another world. In this one all they got to have was a whirlwind romance and an ideal crystallized in his memory.

“They can’t talk back to you here, but they can listen,” Ven says. He smiles at the ghosts, directing his next words towards them. “Hi. My name is Ven. Thanks for being Vanitas’s friend and for teaching him about Yevon, so I didn’t have to.”

All they do is stand there, serene smiles on their faces. He could almost swear that their eyes latch onto Ven, though. He can almost hear Skuld’s teasing laugh, spilling out of her in a voice he could never forget.

_ I think you and I have different definitions of what it means to be someone’s friend, _ she would say. Or something like that.

Ephemer would laugh in the way he used to, deep from the belly and spilling out every part of him. He’d shine so brightly. 

“He wasn’t my friend,” Vanitas says. Their ghostly eyes settle on him instead. 

“Acquaintance, then?”

“Lover.” It feels stupid to say out loud, but it’s the closest word he has.

Ven looks at Vanitas, then at Ephemer. What he thinks he’ll get out of staring at them, he has no idea. For a few moments, he’s still, clearly deliberating something in his head. His eyes dart to his left - and what he looks at is probably something unique to summoners - then back to Ephemer once more. 

He takes a step back and bows in that damned Yevonite greeting. The strange thing is that Ephemer bows back. Skuld follows at his side for even something as small as this, her bow just as deep as his. 

Ven glances to Vanitas, silently prompting him to add something. Too bad. There’s nothing Vanitas could possibly want to say to them.

With that, they fade into the pyreflies.

“I’m sorry,” Ven says. It takes Vanitas a moment to realize that Ven is talking to him. There’s genuine sympathy all over his face. He wears it so oddly. It doesn’t feel good to look at. He continues before Vanitas has a chance to respond. “Falling in love with a summoner is…” he trails off with a wry chuckle, “...hard.”

“I wasn’t in love with him,” Vanitas says. “I knew him for maybe three days.”

“But you could have, with more time,” Ven says, finishing the thought for Vanitas.

But he could have.

Vanitas has nothing to say to that, either.

Ven’s smile turns small and soft. It hurts to look at. “You can go back if you want. I still wanna see Terra and Aqua.”

Of course he wants to see his dead siblings. That’s the whole reason why they even came here. “I’ll stay,” Vanitas says. Not like it matters now. He already faced the person, or memory, or whatever, of who he was most anxious about seeing. He has no emotional connection to these other people. He can give Ven all the time he wants to chat up these chats. Not like he has anywhere else to be.

Ven smiles at him so brightly. Vanitas’s chest squeezes for an entirely different reason from before. He didn’t fall in love with Ephemer, but he could have. 

He could fall in love with Ven so much more easily. He isn’t there yet, but he’s not that dense. He can feel it creeping up on him, one shared moment at a time. There are few things more tragic than falling in love with a summoner.

Being a summoner’s guardian may be one of the exceptions.

Ven closes his eyes and does some weird summoner thing that makes another group of pyreflies gather in front of him. They take the shape of a woman, about the same age as them. Blue hair frames a loving smile. Flowing robes trail down her body, settling in a small pool around her feet. She squares her shoulders and stands with so much pride. 

“Huh. The statues do her justice,” Vanitas says. 

Ven’s eyes flick open. For a moment he’s not a summoner but a child, excited to see one of his favorite people come back home. Vanitas can almost see the relationship these two had growing up played out in his look. He can see the years of love there. Of family. 

Ven’s face falls.

“Where’s Terra?”

* * *

To Shiva, Ven prays for answers.

Yevon has always kept secrets. Ven has known this since the moment he said his first prayer. He was always content to accept the unknown, to live with the double-edged sword that are the hidden facets keeping the religion running. Most people aren’t strong enough to handle unfiltered truth. In the broken world they live in, there is not enough room for doubt to creep into the places where faith should live. They can’t afford that kind of leeway.

And yet. 

There is_ no reason _ that Terra should be alive and Aqua not. He would have come home if that were the case.

_ (Terra knew what end laid in front of him, that last time they were together. He would return with Aqua, or he would not return at all. One could not exist without the other. _

_ He pledged both his life and his death to her.) _

If Ava knows, she does not say. She must know, given the somberness in her voice whenever Ven rages late at night and early in the morning, long after his weary guardian has gone to bed and long before he chooses to wake.

Ven hates the way Macalania Temple, a forest of icy spires, bores a frigid cold into his body. His teeth chatter and his sun-warmed skin turns red from frostbite as he prays in the temple, far away from the fire spell he cast to keep Vanitas warm as he waits. The cold seeps into every part of him, slowing his heart, his mind, his prayers.

One chattering word at a time, he prays for an answer to the one secret he isn’t willing to ignore.

The legends are not kind to Shiva. The people she sacrificed herself for once called her a snake, a monster in wait, a traitor to Yevon himself. She was cold to friends and foes alike, never able to drop her guard down for anyone or anything.

They also say that she was the smartest woman to ever walk the same path Ven treads now. If anyone has the answers, it’ll be her.

She responds not with an answer, but with her power, drawn to Ven’s thirst for knowledge. Her loyalties did not lay with her loved ones the way Ven’s do, but she can respect his source of strength. Her magic chills him to the bone, makes every step of his a little heavier, a little harder to take. 

He is filled to the brim with aeons. Where will the one he knows waits for him in Zanarkand go? How will he make room for it?

Is that what will kill him? Do the same spirits that grant summoners protection also promise them an end?

Only fools travel in Macalania at night. While the priests may refuse to greet Ven by his proper title, they cannot deny his power. Nor can they be callous enough to deny a freezing summoner and his freezing guardian a room for the night. Their hatred runs deep, but their basic decency runs deeper.

There’s two beds in this room - highly unusual, for a room this small - but after Ven changes into his sleep clothes for the night, he stubbornly crawls into Vanitas’s bed. Maybe it’s the proximity, or the weeks they’ve spent with only the other as living company, or maybe something else far more real and far more terrifying, but he selfishly craves what Vanitas once had with that other summoner for himself. He cannot bring himself to speak it out loud quite yet, but he can give himself a warm body to sleep next to.

Vanitas allows it, scooting back to make room for him. They’ve shared beds more times than they haven’t whenever they’re lucky enough not to camp outside, but there’s a gravity that follows a choice as deliberate as this. To share a bed out of compulsion is meaningless. To come this close out of desire is something else entirely.

There are no words for when Ven pulls himself close, closer than he’s ever dared to come before. Vanitas lets out a soft exhale through his nose when Ven tucks himself under his guardian’s chin, a silent plea to keep him safe from the doubts that plague his mind and the clock that ticks ever-louder down to his end. He does not protest when Ven takes his arm and pulls it around him, a blanket of warm skin and companionship under the furs that keep the worst of the cold away. 

He keeps Ven close that night. Keeps him safe and secure.

* * *

Ven’s getting clingy. Dangerously clingy.

This whole fucking trip has been one non-stop parade of dangerous shit, but the kind of dangerous shit Vanitas does _ (used to do) _for a living. He can take fiends descending upon him with claws that render flesh to ribbons and otherworldly screams that make his muscles betray his mind without too much of a problem. Between his sword, Ven’s magic, and those aeons, very few monsters pose anything more than an inconvenience. 

Ven is the one killing him slowly. He laughs more during the day at remarks that used to garner nothing more than an eyeroll. He draws closer at night, closer than friends should draw. He even accepts Vanitas’s request to stay in Macalania Woods for a week straight simply because the weather is lovely this time of year and the gentle blues and kaleidoscope trees are some of the most beautiful things Vanitas has ever seen. 

Part of it is a ploy to spend more time together, Vanitas thinks. Ven’s pilgrimage is nearly over. He’s gotten every aeon Spira has to offer, save for the final one that no one seems to have any information about. Now that he’s so close to death, it seems like he’s actually afraid of it. What lays at the end of his road grows more and more real each day. 

Part of it is a delay. He’s worried about his brother, because if he isn’t in the Farplane, and if he isn’t home, then where the fuck is he? There’s something else that Ven knows, that eats away at him when he thinks Vanitas isn’t looking, but he refuses to say it to Vanitas.

He’s caught Ven talking to himself a few times whenever he thinks Vanitas isn’t around. He decides against commenting on it, unsure if it’s another kind of prayer, a weird summoner thing, or something else entirely. 

But each day brings them a little closer to Bevelle, to where Ven may find an answer to a question he’s terrified of asking. 

For now, he draws close to Ven once more. He can feel Ven’s body heat from this close, radiating off the hand whose every brush against his feels entirely intentional. 

Under the beautiful darkness and gentle music of Macalania Woods, Vanitas lets himself revel in the danger of a doomed romance.

* * *

Bevelle has always been a complex place for Ven. He’s had rocks thrown at him in the streets, he’s been physically thrown out of the temple so many times that the events blur together, and he’s had countless horrible names thrown his way when he so much as makes eye contact with the wrong person.

It became a little easier when he donned the summoner’s robes. It became even easier when the Grand Maester caught him deep in prayer one night after sneaking into the temple. He doubled over laughing and called Ven _ a fun one. _

This place is not easy to live in. Still, it is more of a home to him than Home is. His memories of that city are hazy, clouded in the blood of his parents’ corpses and the kind hands that lifted him out of the slaughter and into safety. Maester Eraqus came to Home hoping for better relations between the Al Bhed and Spirans.

He did not expect another child, yet a child he got. 

Ava’s voice is louder in this city, her form a little more concrete as they walk through the streets. Vanitas stands at one side, and Ava at his other, his dearest friends supporting him on the final leg of this journey. 

Really, they did not need to enter Bevelle. They could have bypassed the entire city and set out for Mount Gagazet without an issue. The only thing left here for Ven is Maester Eraqus and whatever answers he may have about where Terra went. If anyone would know, it would be his Maester.

_ But are you sure you want to know? _Ava asks. It’s the same thing Vanitas has asked countless times. 

He is sure. There are reasonable gaps of faith, and then there is the possibility that his brother is alive.

Only the Grand Maester and the priests whose entire livelihood revolves around the physical upkeep of the temple live within its walls. All other religious officials, Maester Eraqus included, live in the homes surrounding its perimeter. 

Despite the hostile world outside, the world within those walls was a warm one. The sun often refused to hit the roof of Maester Eraqus’s house, hidden away by the sprawl of the temple, but there was always a fire blazing in their hearth. 

_ (Ven once asked why Aqua was always the one to light it. She got cold easily, and keeping the hearth lit was an easy way to practice her magic. Between that and the sweets always baking in the oven, she inspired warmth everywhere she went. _

_ The house stopped getting as warm as it used to once she and Terra left.) _

To Vanitas’s surprise, Ven simply lets himself into Maester Eraqus’s house without even locking. “Why lock it? Nobody’s dumb enough to rob a Maester,” Ven tells him as they enter the home of his childhood.

Vanitas snorts. “You’d be surprised.”

“Yeah, and I lived here for fourteen years without ever locking the door _ or _ getting robbed.”

“You got me there.”

They fall silent as they breeze past the entryway and go deeper into the home. At this time of day, Maester Eraqus should be in his study, reviewing reports from the various military groups the church employs across Spira. It’s such a strange thing, to imagine such a kind man with blood-stained hands, but that must have been the case at some point. He’d be given control over Domestic Affairs like most other Maesters who called Bevelle home did previously if it wasn’t. 

Sometimes, Ven is shocked by how little he knows about the man who raised him. 

For all that Ven doesn’t know, his prediction ends up being correct - Maester Eraqus sits at the desk in his study, pouring over scrolls filled to the edge with cramped writing. Vanitas clears his throat to get the man’s attention, but Ven puts his hand over Vanitas’s as a silent assurance of _ don’t worry, I’ve got this. _

“I’m home, Maester,” Ven says. Maester Eraqus jolts at the sound of a voice that he probably never expected to hear again. He jumps to his feet with a speed uncharacteristic for a man his age - no doubt a result of his years of training. 

He spins to face Ven, awe blossoming over his face like fireworks. His eyes grow misty. “Ventus,” he says. “You’re alive.” He’s too shocked to move any closer.

Vanitas has to swallow some kind of displeased sound at his words. The glare that settles into the crevasses of his own face tells Ven what that sounds would have been if given proper form. “I’m sorry for leaving without telling you.”

Maester Eraqus shakes his head. “The last I heard of you was from the priests in Kilika. You helped care for the Besaidian refugees, if I remember correctly.”

Ven squeezes Vanitas’s hand. Vanitas squeezes back, though the tenderness of the gesture doesn’t ease Vanitas’s displeasure. Ven wishes it would. “I did. I’m almost done with my pilgrimage.” The next words he speaks feel childish to his own ears. “I know you didn’t think I could do it, but I did. I even got a guardian.”

As if noticing him for the first time, Maester Eraqus’s eyes settle on Vanitas. They examine each other like two wolves sizing up a threat to their pack. Maester Eraqus breaks the standstill first, his eyes drifting down to their joined hands. “I see my fears were unfounded.” He never explained before why Ven was forbidden from starting his pilgrimage, but it makes sense now.

“You thought I would never be able to find a guardian.”

Maester Eraqus hangs his head. “I am sorry, Ventus. I was wrong.”

“Let me get this straight,” Vanitas cuts in, “You started your pilgrimage by what, sneaking out of your fucking window and into the most heavily guarded temple in all of Spira?” 

“When you put it that way, it sounds kinda silly…”

“That’s sure a word for it,” Vanitas says. His eyes flick back to Maester Eraqus. “Yeah, I’m the idiot who decided to follow your idiot son on his pilgrimage. Name’s Vanitas. Now, we have a question for you.”

Ah, yes. Always cutting down to the quick. It’s Vanitas’s style, befitting his previous life as a mercenary. As a follower of the teachings, it’d get him nowhere. Ven doubts it’ll get him anywhere with Maester Eraqus.

Despite that, Ven is proven wrong. “Very well,” he says. “What is it you wish to ask?”

Vanitas glances to Ven, prompting him to take the lead. With a deep breath, something to try to steady himself, Ven does. “I went to the Farplane, to see Terra and Aqua before I left. Aqua was there, but Terra wasn’t there with her. Maester… if he isn’t there, and if he isn’t here, then where is he? Do you know?”

Slowly, Maester Eraqus sinks down into his seat. He scrubs at his face, the same gesture he’d always repeat whenever Ven or one of his siblings would ask a particularly difficult question. He knows the answer, or at least something close to it. He just doesn’t want to share. 

“There is a reason why I forbade you from starting your pilgrimage without a guardian. Some of the lesser priests believe it’s because you cannot complete the Cloister of Trials without at least one guardian, but as you know, that isn’t the case.”

“Then what is it?” Vanitas snaps.

Maester Eraqus sighs. “Aqua has passed on, but Terra has not.” He speaks with a careful deliberation, every word cushioned between packets of silence. “You see, Terra… his spirit has been trapped by Sin. Once Sin is defeated, he’ll be able to pass onto the Farplane.”

Five years, Terra’s spent being trapped by Sin. Five long, lonely years to suffer alone. The aeons blaze under Ven’s skin, invigorated by the protective love that roars through him. “Then I have to save him!” He turns to Vanitas. “Vanitas, we have to get going now-”

“-And this is why I never told you before,” Maester Eraqus says. “Because you would rush off to save him.” His shoulders slump, the energy draining out of him. “His spirit is no longer what you remember, Ven. While it’s true that he will be able to go to the Farplane once Sin is defeated, he does not feel anything in this state. Not pain, nor love, nor anything at all. Since the moment Sin reappeared, he has been in stasis. It does not matter how long it takes to topple Sin.”

His love screeches within him, edging closer to fury. “How can you say that, Maester!? I-It’s Terra! He needs help!”

“That _ thing _ is no longer Terra!” Vanitas tenses at Ven’s side, but Ven pays it no mind. How can he, when he still reels from what the Maester is saying? “Ventus. Terra may not be in the Farplane, but he is still dead. You must forgive me for being a selfish old man, but I find that is what I am more and more these days. I have already sent two of my children to their deaths. I am reluctant to send a third.”

“But the teachings… Maester, if we’ve truly atoned, then this could mean Sin’s defeat once and for all! An eternal Calm, so no one else will have to do what I’m doing!”

Maester Eraqus chuckles, but there is no humor in the sound. “You are correct, Ventus. I’m feeling sentimental is all. Will you at least stay here with me for a few days before you leave? Your guardian is, of course, encouraged to stay as well. I would be loathe to pull lovers apart, especially when a bond that intimate is what will give you the most power against Sin.”

Maester Eraqus’s assumption hangs in the air. While close to the truth Ven wants, it is not quite there yet. As badly as Ven wants to comment on it, there’s more pressing information to consider. “I can’t stay, Maester. I have to go.”

“One night then. Please. If this really must be our last time together, then let us end it on a happier note than this.”

Even if they do leave now, nightfall is fast approaching. Vanitas won’t let them travel at night, especially not in the fiend-infested Calm Lands. 

At the very least, Ven can give him that much.

“Okay.”

* * *

They leave early the next morning. It’s only when they’re at the gates of the city, on the border between a city of false life and the barren plains that deserve a much harsher name than the Calm Lands, does Vanitas voice the thoughts clawing at him from within.

“He didn’t tell you the whole truth.”

Ven sighs. This isn’t news to him. “I’m not sure if he ever has.”

“It doesn’t bother you?”

“I’m used to it.” And oh, isn’t that immensely fucked up? Then again, every single word out of that Maester’s mouth was some level of fucked up. Vanitas isn’t sure how much stock he should put into anything he said. The part about Terra still being trapped within Sin is worrying for his own fate, but…

Well. Some part of Vanitas has known for a while now, how Ven would be the death of him.

Maybe in another world, Ven would fight back. A world where the first words pounded into his head weren’t glorifying this useless suicide mission. Maybe that same world would be one where he didn’t feel such loyalty to this bullshit religion, built upon a framework of secrets and a desperate need to atone for an eons old sin that’s nothing more than a scapegoat. This hatred of the Al Bhed is nothing but hatred for the sake of hatred.

In another world, maybe they could be happy. Meet in a restaurant and get the chance to fall in love like normal people.

But this is Spira, and no one here is afforded a luxury that grand.

At the very least, maybe Vanitas can give Ven something that he’s pretty certain they both want. They don’t have much time left together before Zanarkand. Might as well enjoy what they still have.

“Hey, Ven.”

“Yes?”

“Think I wanna kiss you.”

The suddenness of Vanitas’s words shocks Ven, freezing him in place. He looks at Vanitas with those wide, spiraling eyes. The same ones that have always caught his with such ease. “D-did I hear you right?”

“I don’t know,” Vanitas says, stepping close enough to share their breaths. “Did you?”

Ven doesn’t fucking hesitate. He needs no other prompts to close the distance between them. He has no experience, pressing their lips together at an awkward angle. Vanitas tilts his head a little so their noses don’t smash into each other and slots them together until they fit just right. 

Every kiss Vanitas has ever shared has led to this one. The last he’ll ever have, most likely.

Ven takes everything Vanitas is willing to offer. He takes the hands in his hair and the mouth trailing across his throat with a greedy ease. 

Maybe it’s the only thing he’s ever done solely for himself.

* * *

Gagazet’s frozen peaks and flash-flood blizzards test them both in a way that they’ve never been tested before. No amount of fire spells can bring warmth to their freezing bones. No amount of resting can restore strength to their shaking legs. All they can do is keep climbing, trudging past fiends that leap at them out of snowbanks and spheres left behind by countless summoners whose lives were claimed by this soulless mountain.

Vanitas can’t help but think of Strelitzia. She could barely handle the mild climate of Mi’hen. This place would leave her for dead within a day.

They’re dying early so she won’t have to.

There isn’t much to do besides climb and suffer. Vanitas tries to pass the endless hours by entertaining himself with thoughts of a better world. “Picture this. Sin just disappears. You and me are free to do whatever the fuck we want. How would you feel about settling down in Besaid with me?”

“Settling down, huh?” Ven says, his words clipped by his constantly chattering teeth. His feet plod heavily in the snow, steps weighed down by so many souls jammed in there with his own. It’s a wonder he keeps moving forward. “I could do it.”

“Yeah. Think I’m finally ready to dedicate myself to a place, and I’d want it to be there. With you.”

“We could help with the rebuilding efforts,” Ven suggests. “Oh! We could use some supplies to make a hut of our own. Just the two of us.”

“They used to pay me sometimes to take care of fiends around the island. Bet I could do that full-time. Make a nice living for us. Anything you’d want to try?”

“I guess I could help out at the temple…”

That hurts to hear, a sharper blow than even the winds that whip red lines into the tender skin of Vanitas’s face. Too close to reality, too able to shatter his dream. “Nope. Sin’s gone, remember? Nobody uses the temple. Pick something else.”

Ven lets out a huff, the same kind that Vanitas has come to learn means he’s just a little irritated. What other quirks does he have, quirks that Vanitas will never have the time to learn about? 

Even if they got that little hut, how would Ven want to decorate it? What kind of smell would latch onto their straw walls - the smell of cooking fish, fresh herbs, island flowers, or something else that Vanitas can’t even think of?

Vanitas shakes his head to try to clear the thoughts away. Nope. Can’t do it. This is supposed to distract him, not depress him. 

“I guess…” Ven’s huff turns to a breath of laughter, “I’ve always wanted to try playing blitzball. Is that weird?”

Vanitas laughs. How unexpected, yet how weirdly fitting. Ven’s always been full of surprises. “You could join the Besaid Aurochs! You wouldn’t even need to try out. You’ve never played and you’re still probably a better player than any of them.”

Vanitas thinks briefly of the team he used to spend so many of his vacations watching. Of the refugee player he met in Kilika, the one that begged him to find priests to save her dying friends.

Most of the team is dead. 

“Let’s keep going,” Vanitas says, finally understanding a little bit of the drive that’s pushed Ven across the entire continent.

The days blend into nights on this awful slope, trapping them in a cycle of screaming limbs and rations pushed too thin and newly-minted scars from fiends. Still, they push on. For as much as Vanitas might daydream of a home in Besaid, it’s just that - a dream.

Ven refuses to complain, so Vanitas does it enough for both of them. He complains about shit that doesn’t even bother him, of phantom pains and aches that he’s certain contribute to the hard line of Ven’s mouth. There are a few attempts at kissing the tension off Ven’s face, but the cold has numbed their lips and all Vanitas ends up doing is embarrassing himself. 

Most of the Ronso live at the base of the mountain, convinced that their sacred duty is to only let the worthy through the mountain. Ironically enough, out of every follower of Yevon, they were the easiest to deal with. They didn’t look at Ven and see a heretic. All they saw is what he is: the summoner that’s going to destroy Sin. 

They’re granted a brief reprieve from the chilly winds close to the summit. This shelter is a wall of frozen fayth, which is just about as fucked up as it comes. Ven bows his head in prayer as they pass, both to the statues and to the graves that litter their stony feet. Vanitas follows along, ever the diligent guardian. 

Though he has to admit, the hut in Besaid sounds nicer and nicer with every step.

“I can’t take care of anything for shit, but… what would you say if we got a garden? We could grow vegetables. Any kind you like. Herbs, too.”

“I’m allergic to a few types of herbs, but we could do it,” Ven says. “I think I’d like gardening.”

“I had no idea you were allergic to anything.” Given the way Ven shovels food down his throat without discretion, it comes as a shock. What else doesn’t Vanitas know about him - will never get to know about him, when it’s all said and done? “What kinds?”

The answer Ven gives doesn’t matter.

The Ronso are a stalwart people, but they’re not cruel. They find a cave to rest in, enchanted to the brim with fire magic that makes the walls pulse orange. Like they stole the sun itself and hid it here for weary travelers to draw strength from. For the first time since stepping foot onto this mountain, Vanitas’s bones settle back into his body.

They don’t need a note to explain this place’s purpose. There are no more comforts here on out. The least the Ronso can give them is a brief reprieve before the end.

They should rest that night, but they don’t. Vanitas brings his summoner close and they whittle away the hours with their desperate attempts to know each other. And if Ven comes undone that night, then no one else has to see. The only one who does will take the secret to his grave.

It’s so close now.

* * *

The Zanarkand ruins would be beautiful if they weren’t so fucking depressing. They slice down fiends as old as history itself, pick their way past flooded buildings, and listen to countless lifetimes of regret and failure from those who came before. The pyreflies here are eager to capture any strong emotion they can and broadcast them for the doomed to see.

Vanitas wonders what emotion they’ll wring out from himself and Ven. What will end up being their mark here? Vanitas’s rage at the world that brought them here, his despair of this future cut short - what?

In the end, it’s a simple conversation.

“You can still turn back, Vanitas. I don’t want you to fight Sin without me. It isn’t fair.” And there it is again, that bright light in Ven’s eyes that drew Vanitas close in the first place. He watches Vanitas like it’s a challenge, daring him to continue on.

“I could leave, sure. I could walk the fuck out of this shithole and go back to my life as a sellsword. Bring back the Golden Blade. But you know what, Ven? I would think of you every single fucking day, for however many years I got left in me before a fiend takes me down or an asshole guts me or, I don’t know, my body gives out from all the stress I’ve put it through.”

“You could find someone else, Vanitas! You’ll never be happy with me. Not with what’s left.”

Vanitas laughs. It’s rich, that Ven thinks it’s a good idea to drive him away after getting this far. “Please. You really think anyone’s _ happy _ in this world? If you really believe that, then you’re worse at reading people than I thought.”

“Vanitas…”

“Don’t do that. It won’t work. I’m going to die someday, no matter what I do. Why not go down fighting for someone I believe in?”

And Ven can’t argue against that, because it’s nearly the same fucking reason why he made it this far.

* * *

“Congratulations, summoner. You have completed your pilgrimage.” Lady Yunalesca’s voice is ethereal, trapped from within a place that is neither the world they inhabit for the depths of the Farplane. Ven knew, buried somewhere deep within the teachings, that Lady Yunalesca had a part to play in achieving the Final Aeon, but no amount of lessons could prepare him for seeing her. 

“There must be a bond, between chosen and summoner, for that is what the final summoning embodies - the bond between lovers, family, or friends. If that bond is strong enough, its light will conquer Sin.” Every word spills out of her mouth with a carefully measured grace, a speech tempered to perfection over an eon of giving it. 

“A thousand years ago, I chose my husband Zaon as my fayth. Our bond was true, and I obtained the final aeon.” Here, as her ghastly eyes settle on Ven, her speech veers off-script. “Your people are called the Al Bhed, are they not? You are the first I’ve seen here.” An emotionless smile crosses her lips, the kind of pleasantry that is full of nothing but lies.

“They are,” Vanitas answers for him. “And your entire stupid religion is built on the backs of shitting on them. Care to do something about that, _ Lady?” _ Slowly, her head turns to regard Vanitas, moving like a marionette freed from its strings. Everything about her feels wrong, so horribly inhuman, and yet…

Her chuckle is just as emotionless as her smile. “I can sense the bond you have with this summoner. Will you give your life to fight alongside him?”

Ven can’t ask Vanitas to sacrifice himself. Somehow, Lady Yunalesca understands that. Vanitas’s sacrifice has to be given willingly, not pushed forward by Ven. They aren’t afforded the luxury of true love. The closest they can get is a kiss under the stars and a deal that will do them both in, equal on every side.

“This is so fucked up. I knew what was coming, and it’s _ still _ immeasurably fucked up,” Vanitas mutters, turning away from her. He tucks his face into Ven’s shoulder, his arms wrapped around his middle like a child seeking comfort from a stuffed animal on a stormy night. Ven returns the embrace almost automatically. Perhaps he’s looking for the same comfort as well.

“Will you give us some time, please?” Ven asks. “Just… just to say goodbye.”

“Do not worry. You are not the first to request such a thing. I will return when you are ready to move forward.” She disappears in a firework of shimmering pyreflies, her physical form gone but her shadow hanging over them both.

In the quiet of the ruined temple, Vanitas clings to him tighter. “Let’s leave. Go even farther than Besaid. Let’s go to Home. I know enough Al Bhed to get around. We can ride machina through the desert and I’ll pay off some asshole to give you a crash course in the language. We’d never have to think about this again.”

Ven rests his cheek on the top of Vanitas’s head and mourns for all the mornings they’ll never get to share. Just like the garden and hut in Besaid, Vanitas’s suggestion is nothing more than a dream. Ven allows himself a moment - just a moment, nothing more - to indulge in the fantasy. “You know neither of us can.”

“I know. This is the only way,” Vanitas says. His voice is muffled against Ven’s robe. “We’ll go down together, yeah?”

Ven finds his cheek and tilts Vanitas’s head up until his lips are close enough to kiss. Then he does it once more, and once more again, because he can’t stand for just one to be the last. 

If they had more time, maybe they could find another way. Tear Sin apart with nothing but Vanitas’s sword and Ven’s magic, rip it down to the core of its shell and free Terra from whatever prison it’s put him in. 

If only they had more time. 

“I’ll do it,” Vanitas says. “Not for any of them out there. For you. Only you.”

And that’s a good enough reason as any.

* * *

The last words Vanitas ever speaks are a question.

“Answer me this, you fucking zombie. Will Ven’s death kill me, too? Or am I gonna be trapped in Sin?”

Yunalesca looks at him like he’s stupid. “The final aeon becomes Sin. The cycle begins anew.”

Fucked up. The whole thing is fucked up, all the way down.

* * *

It’s the strangest sensation, having your soul torn from your body. 

* * *

The Calm Lands are even more of a graveyard now that Ven is alone. Ava left him at the edge of Zanarkand with a ghostly sob. If she was tangible, she would have hugged him. She was the first friend he’s had in so impossibly long.

_ You were my favorite, _ is the last thing she said to him. Her words echo in his head, propelling him forward.

His steps are so heavy now, his body weighed down by the incomprehensible vastness of the final aeon. The other aeons have been shoved to the edges of his being, straining under his skin and bucking against the fire broiling within him. Even if Ven went back to Bevelle and pretended his pilgrimage never happened, he would be killed from the inside out before the year began anew. Even now, his body weakens under the strain of a spirit so immeasurably strong.

He’s spent the entire trip to the Calm Lands carefully crafting his summoning dance for Vanitas, practicing the steps one and two at a time as he walks. It will be his swan song, one that no one but Sin will see. 

A shadow, larger than anything Ven has ever seen, falls over the deadened grass. Fitting that the first time he sees Sin would also be the last. It’s a ghastly thing, big enough to blot the sun out of the sky. Ven has never hated anything more.

If Vanitas was here, at his side and not taking up every gap that no longer exists in his body, he’d point his sword and laugh about how ugly it is. Ven tries to imagine the cadence of his voice, what words would fall from him and hang in the air, but to do so hurts too much.

He toes off his shoes and steps onto the barren land, no barrier between the air above, the ground below, and the spirit bursting within him. He raises his staff, the same Vanitas used to think was stupid, and dances more passionately than he ever has in his life. Every step is carried by a desperate prayer to draw forth the aeon that’ll take his life. 

It starts as a burning in his limbs, reverberating in the pads of his fingertips and rippling out to his heart. His legs shake, but he still dances, spinning in circles until dizziness overtakes him and he no longer knows which way is up. The burning intensifies, sharpening to knifepoints in his chest, his stomach, slotted between his ribs like the clean cut of his guardian’s sword. Vanitas lurks just under his surface, ready to pounce but unsure of what target to take on. 

Ven raises his arms towards Sin, directing Vanitas towards the mark of his final job. With a goal in mind, he springs into glorious being, pyreflies laying down the framework of the most terrifying aeon Ven has ever seen. A massive black panther roars with a ferocity that shakes the mountains themselves. It must rattle Sin down to its disgusting core. Red lines trail down his sides, circle his ribcage, serving as a patchwork of color right over where his heart would be. His paws are tipped with claws sharper than blades, glinting the same gold in the sunlight as his eyes.

For as monstrous as his form is, those gold eyes still hold the shards of his humanity. His gaze settles on Ven, just as striking as it was the first time their eyes met. 

Waiting for his orders. A sellsword until the end. 

Though for this last job, he is the one who pays the price.

_ Go, _ Ven mouths, a blessing and a goodbye all at once. He continues to dance, even as his body burns alive and his life fades from his bones. No blood drips across the ground, but his strength leaves him in waves. Still, he will dance until his final breath. 

He will not let Sin take Vanitas, too. He’ll transition this summoning to a Sending and no one will know the difference.

Vanitas pounces, leaping into the sky with an effortless grace. His blades sink into Sin’s flesh as he roars, tearing apart hard bone and sinew like paper under his claws. A red tail lashes in the air, not a flag of surrender but of proud, vicious victory. 

Ven burns, with pain and pride and something that is so close to love it could be mistaken for such. As Sin falls to the ground, Ven dances, his staff swooping arcs through the air and curling around his bruised feet. His steps are heavy now, his movements growing clumsy with death’s grip, but still he dances. 

Vanitas rips Sin in two. Deep within is a brown form, nestled between layers of evil and lies. He has never seen this form, but he recognizes the power within those hard angles and the love deep-set into that creature’s clouded face. 

Suddenly, it all makes sense. Sin is born from the final aeon, twisted beyond repair. Secrets and lies, burying something that was once pure and beautiful. 

Sin took Terra. And though it may take Vanitas’s shell, it will never take his spirit. Ven will not allow it.

The old final aeon bellows a final cry, a dirge that splits the ground in two. Ven stumbles, his steps already messy with fatigue, but still he Sends Vanitas, even as he reduces Sin to nothing but an ocean of pyreflies. Vanitas roars once more, the sound settling in Ven’s bones and shaking the teeth in his mouth. He can feel what Ven is doing. The strength must be leaving his body as well.

Ven finishes his dance, his final sending, final summoning, pain wracking every nerve in his body. 

He burns, he is_ fire _-

-He falls- 

-And the Calm arrives.

_ For you. _

_ Only you. _


End file.
